


The Gossip

by Happyorogeny



Series: The Black Temple [2]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Alcohol, Animal Death, Blood, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Disordered Eating, Gen, Hypothermia, Injury, Insomnia, M/M, Murder, falling, heights, mention of sex work, not quite but pretty damn close, past death of a family member
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-03-24 22:31:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13820811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happyorogeny/pseuds/Happyorogeny
Summary: Kael'thas Sunstrider attempts to find a moment of peace. Unfortunately Lady Vashj wants to gossip with Illidan and Illidan has plans he won't share with anyone. This goes spectacularly wrong when Illidan leaves to deal with a dangerous incubus lurking around the temple.





	1. Chapter 1

“We should tell him.”

Oh? Kael'thas felt his ears perk up, metaphorically. It would be most unseemly for a prince to have twitchy ears. Even here in the Den, where he ought to be most relaxed, there were eyes on him. He had standards to uphold.

Besides, he didn’t quite want Lady Vashj and Lord Illidan to realise he could understand old tongue. Their conversations were most interesting. 

Illidan looked annoyed. Then again, Kaldorei always looked annoyed. Their ears naturally sat at the angle of those of an enraged Sin'dorei. It could make social interactions tricky.

Did Illidan think of himself as a Kaldorei?

“They live a half life and look back on their sires and dams with much fondness. He doesn’t need to know the foolery and frivolity of his ancestors.”

Oh?

“It might make him laugh.”

“Or he may consider it an insult. Leave the prince be.”

Maybe the prince could do with a laugh.

Illidan yawned, half covering his face with one wing. Kael had a hard time believing he had ever being bound to the earth.

He also suspected he wasn’t sleeping properly. The would-be Lord of Outland went through cycles where he didn’t eat, didn’t sleep but spent the night pacing to and fro in his quarters, nine steps each way. Over and back, over and back in complete silence, as if the tongue had been ripped from his head.

Kael’thas had moved his quarters to the floor under Lord Illidan’s so as to keep an ear on him. He had paced every day for the past week. After some consideration he’d alerted Lady Vashj. They had to be careful how they stepped with this. Illidan was like a glass bird, light-boned and sharp-edged and primed to see danger in a shadow, in a breath, in a glance. Any imagined threat and what weak trust existed there would be gone.

Even now, even here in the armoured depths of a great fortress he sat with his legs tucked beneath him that he might launch into flight at any moment. Even here he stretched his hands often so that the black talons might be limber.

Perhaps for someone like Illidan, stone walls did not feel like safety.

Lady Vashj accepted a glass of something masquerading as wine from one of the courtesans. They flitted around her vast length like brightly coloured birds and she concealed a sibilant giggle as one of them winked at her. She at least was enjoying her surroundings, coiled across three couches that the attendants had pushed together for her and now having the length of her scaly body buffed and polished by a number of masseuses.

Kael had to imagine this wasn’t quite their area of expertise, but they reacted with classic Sin’dorei ingenuity and had fetched a number of rough brushes so as to rid her of dry skin. A small woman with pliers carefully realigned any loose scales while a man in a sheer shirt painted them with nail lacquer so as to mimic a waterproof coating.

She squirmed happily deeper into the cushions.

“He needs to know about his great aunt Deh’lia.”

“He absolutely doesn’t." Illidan shook his head as one of the attendants tried to tempt him with wine. Kael’thas withheld a wince. It was polite to accept the hospitality of the den, particularly here where they had so little to offer. But Illidan had often tracked dust in here and sought him out to speak of logistics and strategy. He didn’t seem to understand the den was a place of peace, of respite.

Kael’thas had never seen him drink, now that he thought of it. Did night elves drink? Perhaps he couldn’t even digest alcohol. How miserable. 

"Not even a bowl of warm soup would have been safe from that woman’s advances.” Lady Vashj folded two sets of arms. 

“It was all play. She panicked if you returned said overtures.” Illidan was watching someone through the walls, gaze travelling from left to right. 

Vashj looked like she wanted to fold her last pair of arms, but she held them extended for the two courtesans working on her nails. One of them had quietly slipped down to the stables and fetched some blacksmiths tools in order to actually sharpen her talons.

Kael’thas reached for the tea so as to hide his expression. Father always had been reluctant to speak about great aunt Deh’lia, who had left their fledgling kingdom to become an adventurer. 

He braced himself for the wave of grief that rolled over him. His people needed to see him strong. Even in his sorrow, even here, especially here, he couldn’t crumble as he wanted to. 

Perhaps he ought to join Lord Illidan in his nightly pacing.

“I’m going to tell him about Elis'ain.”

“Do not.”

“He takes after him. Same hair. Lighter than Dath’Remar’s.”

Illidan stirred as the same courtesan from earlier returned to him with a purple juice squeezed from local berries. They had painted swirling arcane designs onto an ordinary glass so that he might see it, but done so elegantly that it merely seemed decorative. Illidan took it carefully in his claws, holding it between thumb and middle finger as had been the old fashion in court. Kael’thas caught the attendant’s eye and nodded very slightly in approval. She looked down to hide a grin.

“Elis’an once sent me a very artistic picture of himself.“ Illidan shifted and leaned back upon the low-slung couch, tucking one leg beneath him in an experimental fashion. A fresh tear in the outer membranes of his wing caught Kael’s eye. When had that happened?

"Was it the one with the artful draping of silk? He sent that to everyone." 

Everyone? Sparks, had his ancestors had no sense of decorum?

"Alas, I thought I was special.” Illidan eyed the courtesan filing Vashj’s nails, her eyebrows set in determination. “Why the knife?”

She blinked up at him, startled. 

“We are all armed. If someone comes to attack our guests we are the last line of defence.”

He seemed pleased by that. Lord Illidan had initially been quite opposed to the idea of the Den, until Kael had pulled him aside to elaborate that such arts held no shame in their society, that no one was forced to do anything they didn’t want to. After that he’d largely lost interest. Even now he seemed indifferent to the courtesans, if not the platters some of them had brought up from the kitchen. 

Kael'thas subtly signaled for more food and hoped that Rommath came through on time with supplies next week. Not that he was counting down the days till he saw his companion again. It was merely appropriate for a leader to keep track of all appointments. 

Illidan stretched his claws.

“If you must tell him anything tell him that he sounds just like Dath’Remar when he laughs.“

"I’ve never heard him laugh.” Vashj couldn’t quite stop herself from glancing at him. 

“It’s rare of late.”

Kael supposed it was, at that. He smiled often. A smiling leader was a relaxed, confident one. Laughter, now, that had escaped him. He would have to work on laughing more often. 

Mei'le, who was fond of him and an absolute sweetheart, chose that moment to appear draped in yellow silks and holding aloft with two platters of chocolate covered strawberries. 

Where in Alar’s name? He sat up despite himself, bracing his heels for purchase on the couch. How? They’d lost so much in the Scourge attack, including many of their food crops. Chocolate? Strawberries? Those were luxuries and he had ordered the horticulturists to concentrate on wheat, maize, grapes. 

The other courtesans and guests were similarly delighted as she set them down on the central table. Mei'le looked mightily pleased with herself as she curled into the divan next to him. 

“How is my second-favourite prince?”

It was been too long since someone teased him. He pretended at affront. Mei’le had gotten plump again, he was pleased to see. For a long time she’d relied on an excess of fabric to pretend at health. He still did much the same, wrapping himself in his single remaining court-cloak to hide the fact his ribs stuck out.

She was wearing rose perfume. Sunset rose perfume, specifically, that rare strand with golden petals that ended in brilliant orange. 

They had all burned in the scourging of Silvermoon. How?

“Where’d you source the perfume?”

“A lady never tells.”

But ah, that was part of the game. He leaned back on his elbows.

“I do think you are trying to entice me in with your mysteries.”

She fluttered her eyelashes.

“Enticing? Me?”

He poked her in the ribs and she squawked. 

“Very dignified.”

Mei’le made a great show of sulking behind her embroidered fan, but he could tell she was grinning.

“I’ll show you if you promise not to tell.”

“I never kiss and tell.”

Being an absolute performance artist, she insisted he close his eyes as she led him towards the inner rooms of the Den. It was noticeably warmer here. Sweat prickled along his arms and he debated leaving his cloak behind. He only had one cloak now, two sets of day-clothes and a night gown. Everything else had been sold so as to feed and clothe the others.

Mei'le kissed his cheek before letting him open his eyes and he immediately made use of their privacy so as to pout. 

“Taking advantage of a young man.”

But it seemed as if Mei’le had been busy indeed. This room was curved and tall like a tower, now hollowed out. An immense golden poplar reached towards a domed glass ceiling overhead, exactly the same as the trees that had lined Silvermoon’s avenues. Up on its highest boughs he saw cacao pods, surrounded by vivid blue and indigo butterflies.

His magic told him it was much warmer up there, with temperatures dropping off in the lower parts of the room. A classic rose maze sprawled before him, lined with Royal dark reds, Noble pinks, even the golden Sunset rose. Nestled in at their roots he saw the runners of wild strawberries. 

Mei'le smiled at his obvious joy.

“How?”

“Everyone grabbed what they could when we left. I found some seeds sewn into my gran’s handkerchief. Others we found in jewelry boxes, in the pockets of old coats.”

“All this from mere fragments?” But then, hadn’t Dath’Remar created a kingdom from the scraps of the Highbourne? 

It was nice to kiss and be kissed again, but something was amiss these days. He couldn’t relax.

"You are lovely as ever, but I must attend…” He gestured.

“Of course you must. But linger just a moment and let me fix your concealer.”

He smiled and practiced a laugh. It sounded real, but weary. That wouldn’t do. Mei'le broke out a small brush and smoothed creamy paint under his eyes, lips pursed. 

“You’ve lost weight, sweet Prince.”

“Why, it will save me having to contour." 

She scoffed at him, but squeezed his hand as he left. 

"Eat. None of our people go hungry anymore. Why should you?”

The platters made it easier, for he could see everyone eating around him. He could almost pretend it was Silvermoon again, a party in a guesthouse, a celebration. He could almost pretend all was well, that Rommath would soon appear to scold him, insist he go home, and then immediately get dragged into a conversation about inter-magical politics with one of the courtesans.

Vashj seemed to have very much enjoyed the wine for she had dozed off in a contented coil amidst the cushions, forked tongue flickering as she dozed.

Surprisingly Illidan had remained, sitting where he could perceive the entire room and carefully licking chocolate off his claws. A dozen strawberry stalks sat in the empty glass next to him. He froze as if caught in a trap when Kael’thas plopped onto the couch.

“What was Dath’Remar like?” He wasn’t drunk, but it could be useful to pretend he was, and Illidan didn’t know enough of Sin’dorei etiquette to disapprove of him.

For a split second Kael could have sworn he saw the ghost of a smile there.

“He was a lot like you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed this work come find me on Tumblr!


	2. Chapter 2

Rather than try to steer a supply caravan through the wilderness and bandits of Outland, the mages of the Black Temple and Silvermoon conspired to form massive, temporary portals so as to connect the two worlds for a monthly transfer of food, supplies and people.

Strictly speaking Kael didn’t need to be there to oversee proceedings.

They had this down to a fine art now, the wood and crystal carts of the Sin’dorei touching down upon the courtyard flagstones gentle as a feather. But Kael'thas liked to keep a personal eye on things. Besides, the Sin’dorei were always delighted to see him, brightening like flowers beneath the sun.

And he knew himself well enough to admit he was longing to see Rommath. He wanted someone to talk to, someone who knew him well enough to squabble with him. 

It seemed to be raining back home. What he could see through the portal was grey and dull. The people coming through held scarves over their heads and wrung water out of their hair.

The commonfolk swore it had never rained so much, before the destruction of the Sunwell. The nobles scoffed at such superstition and fearmongering. But Kael’thas was beginning to think they were right.

The new arrivals milled about, peering up at the dusty sky and grabbing nearby soldiers to help them unload their wares. This promised to become a fine mess indeed, for only half the caravans had pulled to the sidewall as ordered. The rest were surrounded by excited crowds looking for loved ones, or adventurers and soldiers trying to find the rest of their squad. The curious broken warriors and orcish scouts did little to move the masses along.

Kael stayed at the top of the steps so that he could see over the crowd. He was of average height for a Sin’dorei and would have to stand on his toes to peer past people if he descended. Two commonfolk carrying a crate of glassware wove past him, ears rigid with concentration. One of them glanced at him.

“You really look like the Prince.”

“Why, thank you.”

It was always entertaining to run into people who had no idea what Kael’thas Sunstrider actually looked like. He directed them into the central hall where a frighteningly organized naga woman with three clipboards waited to disperse them around the Temple.

Rommath seemed to be holding the portal alone, with a few stabilizing crystals for security. Kael frowned and reached out with his magical senses, exploring the arcane signature. Sure enough he could feel only Rom’s magic there, silvery strands knitted together like a wool scarf. He knew a sudden rush of nostalgia. Fabric-based arcane patterns were Rom’s specialty. Woven and crocheted and knotted, fine enchantments embroidered onto a broader magical framework. His whole family were tailors, seamstresses, and he’d grown up looking at knitting patterns and counting threads.

This was new, loosely braiding portal wards together and spinning them so that their momentum stuck them together. A fine tactic for it allowing him to peel layers of enchantment back, gradually shrinking the portal rather than snapping it closed and risking magical backlash.

Clever.

Rom didn’t appreciate his curiosity, for he received the magical equivalent of a slap on the hand.

I’m working! Wait a minute!

Kael restrained himself from flicking back in playful retaliation. The edges of the portal blurred and at the very end of the caravan train he saw a dark head stepping through.

Rommath immediately became embroiled in an argument with the nearest caravan driver, ears flat with annoyance. She put her hands on her hips and started to fight back.

Kael’thas warmed the air around him with a thought and went to greet the newcomers. A part of him hated this, hated how their faces changed. How some of them put their hands to their mouth, in circles on their chest, gestures that had been reserved for use near the Sunwell. How they went quiet at first, how sound came rushing back in whispers, in murmurs, as they waited for him to speak.

A part of him hated it. But the rest of him knew he made their whole day brighter. The rest of him spotted a man with one leg begin to smile, noticed an old woman relax as the warmth of his magic enveloped her. The rest of him knew pride.

He gave them his most dazzling smile.

“Welcome. Let’s all find a new home.”

Rommath had bullied almost everyone into place by the time Kael’thas reached him. This last woman was in a difficult situation for her hawkstrider had lain down and now refused to rise and pull her cart out of the main thoroughfare. He couldn’t blame the poor creature for its feathers were dull with exhaustion and her carriage weighed down with what looked like the belongings of several families.

Lor’themar was doing his best to control population flow through the portal, but the promise of a new world lured many to bribe their way through or stowaway in carts and carriages. He could feel the warmth of a dozen bodies within the carriage, small enough to suggest children or young elves. Orphans were unfortunately common, now.

He ought to send them back.

Instead he put a hand on Rommath’s shoulder. His friend whirled as if expecting a fight and his gaze immediately went to the shadows under Kael’s eyes. Were they showing through his foundation already?

“You aren’t eating,” Rommath accused.

“It’s nice to see you too. Let’s help the lady, shall we?”

Said lady was loudly haranguing the four orcs attempting to physically lift her cart out of the road. A fifth had picked up her hawkstrider while a sixth carefully tipped bone broth into the poor creatures mouth. Kael reached for the right hand side of the cart and Rommath for the left.

They’d spent many an evening designing joint spells, many a day combining their powers. Kael hadn’t realized quite how much he missed it.

His magic wasn’t quite as artistic as Rommath’s. It didn’t have a texture so much as a temperature, and it burned low or flared bright according to his mood. What Kael’thas had was brute force and magic remarkably amiable to combining with and enhancing the powers and spellcasting of others. Sure enough, Rommath’s frown of concentration eased as Kael took the weight of the cart.

He thought he heard someone squeak in excitement inside, rapidly muffled. The orc’s cackled in amusement as they lowered the carriage carefully alongside the high wall of the courtyard. Folk were impressed enough to whistle as it passed overhead, and broke into a round of applause as it touched down.

Kael’thas took advantage of the distraction to squeeze Rom’s wrist.

“It’s really nice to see you.”

“You still haven’t answered me,” Rommath hissed, then relented. “It’s nice to see you too. I brought you some sheep’s cheese.”

He couldn’t quite stop himself from perking up.

“Excellent! We have- well, not quite wine, but some very rich grape juice.”

“Of course you do. I also brought several proposals and two reports for you to look at.”

“Of course you did.”

…

Given that Rom had traveled far, it was only fair to give him a tour.

“Why is there a demon under the Temple, my prince?”

“Oh, that. Illidan is planning something with him.”

“I do not find that wise, prince Kael’thas.”

“We don’t have room to be wise.” Kael’thas turned and tried to speak artfully, but what burst from him was raw and lonely. “Rom, please, enough with the honorifics. We are alone and I want to speak to you as a friend, as much as possible.”

Rommath eyed him a long moment, his demeanor gradually softening.

“I would like that too, Kael.”

Now that they were out of the public eye, Kael felt perfectly comfortable to gather him into an embrace.

That also let him confirm his suspicions. Rommath had a glamour on him. Why? Rom had always been largely free of typical Sin'dorei vanity. He could afford to be, being blessed with clear skin and lush dark hair. But he felt very skinny now, and the shoulders of his robe were loose.

“It’s nothing, I’ve just been busy and missed a few meals.”

Kael’thas whacked him in the ribs and ducked away as Rommath immediately tried to elbow him in the jaw.

“It feels like more than a few.”

He also panted heavily upon climbing one of the many spiral staircases in the Temple, his breath rasping by the end of it. Kael had quite deliberately picked a stairs that led to one of the quieter wings of the Temple. It opened into a what he thought was a small chapel carved directly into the rock. One wall was composed of fine clear crystal, tinted pink by some unknown mineral and allowing a stark view over the valley’s somewhat bleak vista. He insisted on sitting for a moment.

“All the barren rock and lonesome wind. There’s something almost poetic about it, really.”

“No there isn’t.” It took Rommath a long time to get his breath back, and he coughed into his sleeve for a good minute after speaking. Kael waited, settling back on the pew and stretching his legs out.

“What happened?”

“You haven’t read my last report.” Rommath flattened his ears at him. That took the wind from his sails somewhat for it had indeed slipped his mind and his grasp, buried under the daily disasters of the temple. Rommath huffed at him and looked away.

“A nasty little cough, nothing more.”

Kael was not reassured by this in the slightest. Rommath had once referred to a fever that nearly killed him as a minor annoyance.

“How bad were our losses?”

“Minor.” Rommath had always been a terrible liar.

“Rom.” He poked him in the thigh with his toe.

“Not as bad as it could have been.”

“Rom!”

“One hundred and twenty two.”

Kael'thas had tried to brace himself for that, for the harsh fact that deaths had occurred. He evidently hadn’t succeeded for his fingertips went quite numb and his head was suddenly filled with a rushing, roaring sound.

They couldn’t afford to lose one hundred people, not with their population so low, not with-

No time for that, he thought distantly. He would worry Rommath. Best to shrug this off. He took a breath, settled back into the heavy fabric of his robes and set a neutral smile on his face.

“I saw that.” Rommath’s voice was tight.

“But no one else would have, which is the important thing.” We ought to have had more time to prepare for this, to be leaders. We ought to have had more time. “How were our losses so low?”

“A robust quarantine, a well implemented emergency response procedure and the fact that Lor'themar and half the rangers were already immune.”

“Oh?”

“Seemingly they all got hit with a much weaker version of the illness years ago, enough to ward them against this one. We were able to crystallize a serum from them with fair speed.”

Well, thank the Sunwell for that.

“Lor’themar is well?”

“Hale as a horse and twice as energetic. He makes the head of the noble houses stretch before their meetings. Says it keeps the mind fresh.”

Kael couldn’t quite stop himself from snorting.

“Reminds them who’s in charge, too.”

The old noble houses that remained after the sundering were a stuffy and cowardly lot, who savagely resented Lor’themar on account of his commonplace background and ranger career. In contrast the newer noble houses adored him. The destruction of Quel’thalas had resulted in the death of many family lines, noble and commoner alike. Kael’thas had raised a number of houses into ascendancy so as to fill the vacuum of authority and leadership in the agricultural, mercantile and military domains.

All those skills, lost. Even now it made his heart hammer to think of it. They had lost major boat-building families, records of animal bloodlines and entire arcane schools, lifetimes of history and knowledge perished in fire. Things that seemed unimportant compared to the lives of his people, but now came back to haunt him as unexpected potholes in an already uncertain path. With their population and people so diminished, could they ever hope to stabilize? Or were they doomed to constantly scrabble for survival?

Quite without realising it he dug his hands so tight into his thigh that they pierced fabric and flesh. Dammit! His only other set of lounge clothes were sadly threadbare- no matter. He could hide it beneath his cloak. He was fortunate that Rommath had closed his eyes for a moment, sinking back into the re-purposed pew.

“Forgive me. The portal was tiring to maintain.”

There was more to it than that, but Kael’thas had to allow him some pride.

His thoughts were interrupted by a giggle, and the gentle ringing of metal chimes. Sure enough, a few of the courtesans had noted where the Prince and the Magister went. And now they just so happened to be wandering past in fine day robes and soft slippers, bearing a small tray of sandwiches and what looked like a slightly battered silver tea set. Kael smiled at them as he spied chicken and apricot in the mix, one of Rommath’s favourites.

“Why, what a coincidence. I was a little peckish.”

Clar’sa winked at him knowingly, and Rommath became uncharacteristically shy as one of the loose-shirted men insisted on pouring him three different tea blends. Pleasant as the company was, he wanted some time alone. He subtly nudged them along after promising to visit later in the evening so as to return the tea set. Rom rolled down his collar to sniff cautiously at one of the enameled cups.

“A local blend?”

“Aye. The lower parts of the valley are enclosed and grow hot in the day, enough for us to grow a number of things. We even have a vineyard.”

“Excellent. I brought a chutneys to go with the cheese.”

“Why, I thought you were here on business.”

“No one can do business on an empty stomach.” Rommath nibbled on one of the sandwiches as he spoke.

“Lor’themar must love you.”

“Oh, absolutely not.” Rommath seemed to realize what he said and tried to backpeddle. “Not that there is dissent. Merely discussion.”

“I’ve had discussions with you.”

“Vigorous discussion, then.” Rommath downed the tea suddenly, as if it were liquor, and spoke in the fashion of someone who had restrained themselves for too long. “I can’t understand the man, we shouted at each other for a good half an hour and afterwards he put his hand on my shoulder and said he enjoys our talks.”

“You are straightforward. He appreciates the honesty. What was this discussion over?”

“Merchant taxes. On the silk weavers.” Rommath looked embarrassed briefly, as was his fashion when knowledge from his background came up. “They were trying to pass off arcane work as hand-painted robes and get a larger tax break on it as an artistic good.”

“Hah!”

“He was wrong and no one else would say it,” Rommath flicked magic at the pot so that it rose into the air to refill their glasses. “Ah, blazes. I shouldn’t be telling you this. It makes the situation look out of control.”

“I’d be more worried if no one was shouting.” None of them had wanted to wade through the blood of family and friends to end up where they were. He wanted his father, Rommath would give anything for Belo’vir to walk the land of the living. He was quite sure Lor’themar would happily tear out his other eye to return Sylvanus from the dead.

“To clarify,” Rommath said insistently, “People look better. Happy. There’s a food surplus, cloth, magic coming through from here is enough to keep them from rioting. They are starting to walk with pride again. Throw their unmarried daughters at me.”

“Alas, what a burden.”

“Not to worry, Halduron catches them and walks them home while expounding at length about the merry life of a Farstrider, their freedom and adventures, and their great number of young men who exercise naked in the mornings.”

“How generous. How does Lor’themar do behind a desk?”

“Badly. But he knows his duty.” Rommath paused with the expression of someone who wanted to say more. “He’s raising an abandoned lynx cub under it. He brings her to meetings, on account of them needing to be fed every two hours.”

“That’s only fair. He couldn’t let the poor animal go hungry. And the servants might not do it correctly.”

“Exactly. It has nothing to do with the fact she covers his blind spot and growls at nobles look at him crooked.” Rommath made a face. “Every time I go to him he has introduced another plant into the room.”

“Soon he will be able to hide from you.”

“There’s no hiding from me.” He spoke with such savagery that Kael could only laugh.

“Is he handling the nobles well?” Kael knew he had passed Lorthmar something of a poison cup. The older houses were those who preferred to vie for power while royalty was away, inherently disloyal. Many of them had suffered severe losses in the attack, and losses again of both dignity and family while working with the humans. They were desperate, grieving and wicked.

Rom made a soft noise that could have been exasperation.

“He’s figured out they’ll time their drinking to his, so he has me siphon the alcohol out of his wine. He keeps alert while the rest grow sloppy.”

Kael couldn’t quite stop himself from looking horrified. While it was clever, it was entirely scandalous to waste precious wine stocks in such a fashion.

“It serves him well as a habit. You remember the Skyfires? The parents perished-” they both traced a circle on their chests as he spoke, an echo of the Sunwell, “And the eldest child leads the family now. You remember her- dark hair, independent, fled the family first chance she got so as to find a life for herself. She came with a boning knife at the first soiree and tried to stab him, he talked her down and now she’s in charge of the palace catering, adores him.”

“Important to have someone loyal to you in the kitchens. They’ll spot a poisoner faster than anyone. Has he developed an indoor voice yet?”

“Absolutely not. It’s surprisingly useful, I never have any trouble finding him.” Rom put his ears back. “Unfortunately, neither do the assassins.”

Kael grimaced. He had been worried about this.

“He isn’t hurt?”

“On the contrary, they seem to have given up and he seems disappointed by it. Treated it as a morning exercise.” Rommath sat up and cleared his throat so as to mimic the regent lords merry growl. “Now if it were me, Rommath, I wouldn’t bother with this nonsense of coming in through the window. I’d simply knock at the door and kill whoever answered it.”

Kael’thas grinned.

“I do imagine he’s used to wrestling bears before breakfast and that kind of thing. An assassin is hardly frightening.”

“We were recently in a…debate-” a fight “-wherein he dragged me across the desk-”

“Oh my-”

Rom swatted at his ear.

“-as six louts burst in. He knocked one out by throwing his glass eye at her head.”

“Oh, suns.”

“Aye. Then he sulked for a good half hour when I got the rest with a fireball. A good natured sulk mind you. Well shot! I must be growing stiff, indoors all day. Perhaps I’ll outpace you next time.”

"Did he find his eye?”

“No.”

Kael covered his face briefly. Rom chuckled at his expression, then looked down at the empty tray and scowled.

“You didn’t eat a thing.”

“I’ve had breakfast. Besides, you did a fine job of clearing it.” He stood smoothly, pleased by his minor deception. “Lets bring them back the tea set. I’ll bring you through the mana siphons on the way.”

…

Rommath had the good grace to look impressed when Kael'thas pushed him through the seven layers of silk curtains that marked the entrance to the Den. And the courtesans, as always, were prepared. Every royal blue and blush pink pillow was plumped, every translucent drape freshly brushed, every couch angled to welcome newcomers and a number of divans pushed together to provide secluded corners for quiet conversation.

The Den hosts lounged with deliberate ease, plucking at fine harps and reading academic works or books of poetry. All were garbed in their sheerest silks and most unlaced shirts. They even boasted a few gold-painted succubi among them, the lesser demons being most likely to turn coat and join Illidan rather than fight against him. One of them was having the barbs of her wings painted bright red by two Sin’dorei woman and kept turning to admire herself in the mirror, despite their admonishments. 

Every aspect of a true den was designed to set the client at ease, a bubble of care and comfort from the concerns of the outer world. And this was easily the finest Kael had ever seen, better even than the houses of Quel'thalas.

Rommath sighed at him, even as Kael’thas took two flutes of sparkling liquor from a passing tray.

"We do have things to discuss.”

“You aren’t due home for two days.” Not that he’d been clinging to the promise of his best friends’ visit for weeks, or anything unseemly like that. “We can talk and eat at the same time.”

The Den had spotted that they had a client that didn’t want to relax, and immediately sent out their handsomest men with low cut shirts and magical backgrounds to drag Rom into a discussion on fel-arcane theory. Mei'le winked at him as she appeared bearing a new selection of tea and a variety of stuffed peppers. Rommath relented. It would be unconscionably rude to refuse the hospitality of the den. With the other members of the caravan beginning to troop in, it promised to be a fine evening.

Many hours and glasses later, they retreated to the balcony for privacy. Kael dragged a number of blankets out with them and Rom produced a large wheel of cheese out of an arcane pocket. It was only proper to have some wine along with that, and chutney, and a tiny jar of orange blossom honey that the Den apiarists had recently produced to much celebration.

“He has a good eyepatch that he’ll only wear for people he likes.” Rommath was lamenting over Lor’themar’s many idiosyncrasies. Kael’thas couldn’t stop himself from laughing. He knew he had drank too much for he felt relaxed for the first time in weeks. Lying back with his eyes closed, the whole world seemed to be spinning gently.

“What does he wear with the people he doesn’t like?” Music drifted over him from inside the Den and the yet-mysterious stars of Outland glittered overhead like tiny lanterns.

This wasn’t so bad, really. This could be something beautiful.

“He won’t wear one and he aims the blind eye at them so as to make them nervous.”

Kael’thas tried briefly to control himself and completely failed, burying his face in his sleeves. Rommath propped himself up on one elbow to scowl at him.

“It’s not funny!”

“It’s hilarious. Come, you would absolutely do the same thing if you only had one eye.”

Rommath looked as if he wanted to react to that, but suddenly tensed and looked upwards.

“There’s something up there!”

“Illidan. He likes to sleep in the open air by times.” Kael’thas had often wondered if this was a Kaldorei habit or the claustrophobia of someone kept in a small cell for many years.

“He’s coming down.”

Kael’thas barely stopped himself from putting his ears back. They had been having such a nice evening. No word of disasters in the valley or missing scouts or approaching demons. 

He considered standing, then decided against it. He would only stagger. Instead he shifted so as to recline in a lazy fashion upon the cushions. Leaning a little too heavily into the Sin’dorei reputation for debauchery perhaps, but better to appear deliberate in his actions rather than incompetent. It did cause his robe to fall open over the chest in an alarmingly rakish fashion, but it wasn’t as if Illidan would notice.

The self-styled Lord of Outland did not look well. He’d lost his hair tie somewhere so that it fell over his face and curled across his shoulders. Nasty, recent looking scars gleamed silvery green on his chest. But he landed lightly enough and was steady on his feet- on his hooves?- as he bounced two steps forwards.

“Ah, excellent, both of you can see. Do I look like I invite attack?”

What an odd question. Rommath seemed slightly overwhelmed by the demon hunters sudden, large, very potent appearance. Magic poured off him in heavy layers, almost tangible in the air, a heady musk that made even experienced mages reel.

“Not at all! You just look very, ah, rustic.”

“More like you had a fun evening and lost a shoe.” That was perhaps an overly specific example, Kael’thas thought. He was being familiar. He didn’t care. “Did we wake you?”

“It pleases me greatly to hear so many voices.” Illidan looked around suddenly, out over the plains. Kael’thas followed his gaze through the gaps in the balcony, though he of course could see nothing.

“You could pretend to have a lame leg?” He suggested. “You know how a horse may stand if they have a stone lodged in their hoof.”

Had Illidan ever seen a horse? His Highbourne ancestors had domesticated horses, surely? Although he far preferred hawkstriders, himself.

“A good suggestion.” Illidan lifted his foot as if it wouldn’t hold up under his weight and let one wing hang from his back. “What say you now?”

“I’d try to jump you in the night,” Kael’thas offered cheerfully. Rommath looked at him in horror. “What class of demon are you trying to lure out?”

For that had to be it. His comings and goings, the scars- only demons could cause Illidan to fixate like this. Demons, and objects that helped him get closer to killing them.

For a long moment he thought Illidan wouldn’t answer him, face turned out into the darkness. But he almost smiled as he spoke.

“An incubus of remarkable power. His voice alone can lure even a strong-willed sorcerer into his service, and his gaze convinces mortals to serve him. But he’s found his match in me.” He stretched his wings and rolled them in their sockets. Was he…preening? “He is determined to get into the Temple. I’ve held him at bay and chased him into a quarry. He’ll be starving by now and fool enough to be deceived.”

“Dangerous. You must allow me to send soldiers with you.” Kael’thas sat up and looked at Rommath, who nodded.

“No.” Illidan spoke with the absolute certainty of someone rarely disagreed with. “They would only be turned against me.”

“Then I will come. I have wards and magic enough to defend me.”

“Your courage does you credit, brightprince. But you have a terrible weakness for a handsome face.”

Rommath proved himself a poor friend by snickering as Kael attempted desperately to think of a suitable rebuttal. Illidan set a foot upon the balcony so as to launch himself into the night, opening his wings in a smooth wave of motion.

“Do take care with that robe. It’s very elegant, but you might take a cold in your chest.”

“Couldn’t be having that,” Rommath said earnestly as Kael went mute with horror. How could he- ah. He saw magic. So a mage would be clear and detailed in his sight.

He could have sworn he saw Illidan flash him a toothy smile before taking away into the night, well pleased with his mischief.

Lout.

Rommath hit him with a cushion. 

“Cover yourself!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find the rest of my work at: 
> 
> https://happyorogeny.tumblr.com/writing


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Illidan's plan doesn't quite seem to have worked out.

Wakefulness crawled over Kael gently, like the whisper of the wind before rain. The morning was dark yet. Outland tended towards very sudden changes in its cycle, day turning to night as if someone had blown out a candle.

Rommath grumbled as the windows rattled in their panes.

“Those are poorly fitted.”

“The guildmaster of the glassblowers is dead.” Kael’thas pulled one of his many blankets around his shoulders, seeking to block out a sudden chill. “The apprentices did their best.”

Rom elbowed his pillow into a more suitable shape and curled into it with a sigh.

“Claron, is it? The closest thing they have to a master now.”

“Aye.” What a horror, that they should be so reduced that each survivor could name every other. They needed to rest and be safe, not launch themselves into a hopeless war against demon hoards-

His grim thoughts were interrupted by a soft snore, more like a purr than anything. He turned his face into the duvet to hide a grin. Rom had the right idea. They needed all the rest they could get.

When he woke a second time it was to the numbing roar of rain.

It was rare that he woke up so gently. No startled cries because the gate was under attack, or hesitant servants knocking at his door. It was a different thing indeed to wake up in slow stretches and sleepy twitches of the ear.

Last night had been merry. His feet still ached from dancing and he seemed to have stolen a pillow from the Den. Ah yes, to give Rom a chance to distract that magus he’d taken a shine to. 

They’d both gotten lost on the way back to Kael’s rooms, raided the kitchen in time honoured tradition, and then realized that they’d managed to lock themselves out.

Fortunately, Rommath had learned how to pick locks with his knitting needles.

“Since when can you do that?”

“Knit?”

“No!” Inspiration struck him. “This is a Lor’themar thing, isn’t it?”

“Tis a disgrace how a young man can end up in the prime of life without essential skills, but do not worry, we shall rectify this.” Rommath really had gotten good at mimicking the voice.

“A young man? You’re two years older than him!”

“I know!”

Once they’d actually gotten inside Kael’thas had made the executive decision to pull out all his blankets, for the purposes of not freezing to death. Rom promptly became incredibly sentimental because Kael still had the old patchwork quilt he’d presented him with many birthday’s ago. Unseemly for a royal, perhaps, but it was one of the few genuine things he had ever received. The nobles brought him gifts meant to display their own wealth and power. Jewellery, weapons, fine artistic pieces that belonged in a museum rather than a private collection.

Amidst all that, a blanket carefully stitched together from fabric scraps seemed a poor thing indeed. But Rommath had been the one to notice that Kael preferred shades of orange to shades of red, had been the one to stitch pockets into the inner lining so that Kael could carry books with him. 

Speaking of Rom, he could hear wood scraping over wood, glasses clinking and the spell-weavers sleepy grumbling. He lifted his head just enough to peer out at him.

“That root to the far left is the nicest, if you’re looking for coffee-type things.”

“Root?”

Kael sat up and immediately regretted it. The room was damn cold. Gooseflesh prickled along his arms and shoulders.

“We experiment with alternatives to beans. But Do’rai will arrive any minute now. She insists on making breakfast.”

Rommath paused, well aware of how particular Kael’thas got about his morning meal. During their time abroad Kael had happily gotten up even when the morning was yet dark in order to make fresh flatbreads and season the morning chocolate. 

Even now he tended to rise with the sun, for it gave him time to seep heat and magic into the stones of the Temple. The Sin’dorei wing was always wretchedly cold in the morning. There was supposed to be a constant low fire deep in the pits of the Temple that would warm the walls and floors, provide smoke for the kitchens to preserve meat and fish. But Akama often let it lie fallow, perhaps encouraging them to leave.

Kael’thas knew a brief twinge of shame over that. It hadn’t quite being his intention to move into the shaman’s ancestral home and it was most unseemly for them to squat here, the proud Sin’dorei, in a place that wasn’t even theirs. It seemed an ill-omened way to begin their rebirth, with the theft of hearth and home. Father would have looked poorly upon this.

But there was nowhere else for them to go. The Temple was the most fortified structure for miles, the only thing that the demons couldn’t dig them out of.

Once they had constructed and secured a home in the Netherstorm, the Sin’dorei would move on. The thought never failed to brighten his mood, a fine catacomb palace of purple and orange crystal, high ceilings and open balconies. No more dust or darkness, no stench of blood and death in the walls. The magic there could sustain their severely depleted populous for generations to come.

Kael’thas wasn’t so sure what Illidan intended on doing. Illidan himself probably wasn’t too sure. All he really seemed to desire was a secure place to store his army and his artifacts, somewhere to fall back and lick his wounds.

There was no reason that place couldn’t be with his people, surrounded by purple storms and magical flux strong enough to dazzle a demon and confound even the Wardens. They could build themselves right into the rock and have half the new palace open to the sky, so that winged couriers and demon hunters alike could come and go as they pleased. Surely the Sin’dorei seemed half-way familiar to him, echoes of the Highbourne.

It might raise issues of hierarchy and subservience. Kael’thas had no intention of being overruled in his own house. But that was a thought for the future. For now, other grapevines needed tending.

Rommath heard footsteps approaching the door and opened it as Do'rai raised a hand to knock. The poor woman almost fell into him and it was only by Rom’s quick reactions and the grace of the Sunwell that the coffee was saved.

Do'rai peered at Rommath. She was extremely near-sighted and took advantage of it to pretend she didn’t see people coming with work for her.

“I’ll fetch a second cup.”

Do'rai had, unfortunately, also brought him paperwork. Kael’thas schooled his face to neutrality. Scouting reports, logistical notes, petitions, military advice…

Rommath put a hand on his arm.

“I’ll sort them by topic if you want to wash.”

You want to see what’s going on. Kael’thas hated himself for thinking it, and hated even more that he was probably right. Worse again, he ought to keep Rommath out of the loop on certain things. There was a rank to their interactions, one that hadn’t existed before. The Prince ought to know more on certain things than the Magister. Kael’thas might well have to make choices that would affect the magi badly. It was best to keep things like that to himself, least he be influenced unfairly by sentiment. 

Well, damn that. He started to smile and then stopped himself. It felt false, the smile he used for the crowd.

“There’s a quill in the drawer to your left.”

…

It was all far too pleasant to last. Kael’thas supposed he should be thankful that the daily disaster waited until after his bath.

He had just finished pinning his hair in place when the mind-message struck. The magical call hit them both like a slap in the face, crashing easily past their wards. Rommath instinctively summoned a protective bubble around them both and Felo’melorn dropped into Kael’s hand as easily as he might take a breath.

_Come to me._ Illidan’s voice was as clear as though he were only in the corridor outside, and surprisingly calm. Fragments poured across his minds like water from a bucket. Darkness rich in texture, outlining shadowy mountains, scrubby trees, a deeper shadow of the sky. Ten pointed talons curled in front of him, made visible only by their coating of neon blue blood. Pain pulsed from green slashes gouged into his stomach, burned from his left wing. The membrane was shredded, bleeding and aching.

_Come to me._

Rommath had grabbed onto his elbow in case he staggered and now shook his head as if to clear it.

“What the blazes was that?”

A part of him was mightily pleased that Illidan had reached for Rommath too, despite barely knowing the man. He clearly knew a trustworthy soul when he met one.

Kael’thas straightened himself, smoothing his robes and took in a breath. Rommath looked as if he would speak again, then put his ears back and strode to the door, snatching it open. Do’rai didn’t quite straighten quick enough to hide the face she had been eavesdropping.

“If you could run to the kitchen and fetch another pot?” He pushed it into her hands and glared at her till she left. Kael’thas waited.

“You need better servants,” Rommath said as he turned, clearly angry.

“I don’t have other options.”

“What about Mei'le?”

“She had no desire to trade silks for statistics.”

“Very well, I’ll send you one of my secretaries. I have five and need only two, and they are savvy creatures all.” Rommath didn’t need to say that he had so many because their former masters were dead.

“It seems as though our Lord may be imperiled.” Kael’thas took care not to show that had shaken him. He had never seen Illidan in pain before. He stood stoic and indifferent to injury and blood alike, as if he were a statue.

“I saw only darkness, punctured by two points of light.”

He fetched paper and held it out.

“Show me.”

They weren’t the only ones to hear Illidan’s call. Vashj startled them both by leaping thirty feet from the moat as they moved along the outer wall of the Sin’dorei wing, cutting towards the upper command room. She landed before them and heaved herself upright, panting in a manner very unlike her usual dignified bearing. Kael’thas helped her adjust her shawl so that the seaweed-fronds didn’t tangle in her lower arms.

“What did you see?”

“Not see. Smell. Demon blood and rust, and an east wind carrying snow.”

It was superstitious to see snow as a bad omen. Kael’thas hadn’t even been in Quel’thalas when the grey snow arrived, a cruel warning of the Scourge to come. But nevertheless he knew a coldness in his chest at her words.

He had never being so cold before. His magic had protected him.

Rommath automatically fell back half a step behind him as they entered the council room, boasting a massive war table at its centre. Technically it ought to have been two steps, but Kael had always found that unnecessary. Besides, they were in a hurry.

Oddly enough, Illidan had called Akama as well. Kael set his teeth as the shaman arrived at a shuffle. He knew the broken could move faster than that.

He had tried oft enough to shift Illidan’s dependence off Akama to himself- partially for political reasons and partially because he knew damn well Akama didn’t necessarily want them hale or healthy. But he simply knew so much of the surrounding lands and their history, of demon gates and their locations, of magics new and old alike. His rheumy eyes fell on Rommath and narrowed. The mage immediately bristled back.

“Is it wise to have your…underlings here?”

Well, it looked like he was going to have to get princely about things. Kael’thas ignored this weak attempt to put him on the defensive.

“Tell us what you saw.”

“Naught but darkness. Plainly his sight cannot translate to my mind.”

Kael’thas sidestepped so that Akama had to look at him or look away. Meek though he acted, Akama scorned him and had an argent sense of pride as yet. Sure enough he glared back. Kael’thas moved his hands inside the loose sleeves of his overcloak and heated the air around them subtly but surely. Rommath eased with surprising grace to the opposite corner of the room and hooked his enchantments into Kael’s, molding it into a self-propagating circle. They would sweat this out of the man if he had to.

“Tell us again.”

Akama relented, shoulders drooping.

“Not an image. A map, with an ancient temple of my kin at its centre.” He banged his staff on the stones beneath them. “Doubtless he intends to fill it with demons, too.”

Kael’thas held his gaze.

“Am I a demon?”

Akama pressed his lips together and said nothing. Vashj shifted so that she reclined upon her many coils like a queen on her throne.

“Am I?” she asked, her voice sibilant and dripping danger. But Akama didn’t seem intimidated- in contrast he seemed to swell and the air around him grew heavy. His teeth ached in his head and Rommath tensed behind the shaman, gathering himself.

“Of course you aren’t. Are we not all leaders of our people?” Akama’s voice had gone from a breathy rasp to a low, smooth rumble. “You know what it is to be driven before a cruel enemy, to have those you know and love cut down as if they were no more than an errant tree.”

He ought to stop this. Akama had no right to speak to him or Vashj in such familiar terms. But his tongue had glued itself to the roof of his mouth. He couldn’t speak in a fashion that would defeat Akama’s words, and a prince did not lower himself by arguing with those who ought to take orders. Unfortunately, Akama took his silence as a chance to continue.

“You know what it is to crave safety, shelter, for more than just yourself. Illidan lied to us. He brought demons to the door, and he cannot hold them at bay. A mighty warrior he may be, but a leader he is not.”

Kael’thas thought of a flame, smooth and yellow and neutral, so as to keep his expression bland. Akama had a point in regards to Illidan’s talents. Had Kael’thas not thought as much himself, in the darkest hours of the night? How much easier it would be if he led the coalition and Illidan was merely an independent, some kind of privateer and consultant on demonic affairs? Surely he would even be happier like that, free and lonely and unfettered as a cloud in the sky?

“The storm out there is a violent one. Even the strongest fighters can fall prey to a freak accident.”

How were they ever going to defeat the Legion, really? Only gods and angels and great heroes of legend could afford personal crusades. Not princes, not kings. They struggled through the murk of duty and responsibility and had to struggle to maintain stability.

Illidan was neither a hero nor a god. An ancient and eldritch creature perhaps, but one with a taste for strawberries. Almost mundane.

“Lord Illidan may be blind, but you are short-sighted.” Vashj’s voice was every centimeter that of a highbourne lady disgusted by what she surveyed. “Shame on you!”

Akama sighed and turned to Kael’thas.

“And you? I would parley with a prince before a demon.”

They could do it. The two of them could side together against Vashj and leave Illidan to whatever fate came to claim him. Their peoples could both recover, not get dragged into some hopeless war against an unrelenting enemy.

Kael’thas hesitated.

Illidan had never demanded an oath of loyalty from him and gave no explanation for the huge risk he took in freeing them from Dalaran. He had made more enemies than friends with that gambit. He had acted when every other party seemed content to watch them die a slow and miserable death. He’d noticed Kael didn’t tend to laugh anymore.

Besides, Illidan would probably arrive back in a week either way. He had a remarkable capacity to survive. Politically, this wasn’t the time for a takeover.

Kael'thas didn’t tend to show his teeth when he smiled. He retained the sharpened, pronounced canines of his Kaldorei ancestors and an unfortunate angularity of face that became sharp when he grinned. In the last few months his eyes had gone from grey to blue to vibrant green. The whole thing came together to look just a little deranged.

He leaned into it now.

“Are you sure about that, Akama?”

Rommath eyed him sidelong and then straightened.

“I’ll fetch a map.”

…

This seemingly barren mountainside would make a fine test, Maiev decided. It was damp from that wicked storm yet, enough that she could see a dry patch in the lee of this great boulder. She turned to Ki'ra.

“What do you see here?”

She froze in alarm, as was her way. Not a good habit. But the girl was brave and adept enough and set about investigating quickly, dropping off her nightsaber and trotting forwards.

“A bird plucked with the teeth, like as with a fox or a saber.” She frowned. “That kind isn’t a plains bird. Maybe it got blown in by the storm.”

Maiev waited, running a hand along Swift’s neck. Her saber purred contentedly and swung her blocky head back to lick her gauntlet. She had taken great care in Swift’s breeding and training, and was eager indeed to see how the blocky, speckled saber took to mountainous terrain.

“The teeth are sharp like those of a cat, but the jaw structure is all wrong.” Ki'ra frowned. “They disdained the entrails but ate everything else. The liver, the lungs, the heart.”

He had always favoured the heart, as if seeking to make up for a deficit in himself.

“What else?”

“The moss is flattened down, although I could be imagining it.”

“You aren’t.” Maiev could see a familiar curve there where someone had slept and then tried, ineffectively, to cover it.

“Scuff marks on the rock itself.” Ki'ra hesitated. “Forgive me. I don’t know kind of animal this is.”

“You aren’t looking at the leavings of an animal.” She rolled her shoulders till the joints popped and hopped down off her mount, scratching her behind the ear as she stepped forwards.

“A demon?”

“Something like. These broad scratches are where he scraped his hooves.” She placed one armoured foot against it to demonstrate. “Here, these are from the claws of the hand. Up here, these are from the sharpening of the horns.”

All of them suggested something smaller than a Natrizhiem. That bizarre storm had reeked of fel, likely some nefarious spell gone awry. It seemed Elune had blessed them with opportunity even in this dreadful place. It had been some time since the Goddess had spoken to her directly but she supposed that was to be expected. Maiev had never needed much guidance and she was sure the gods had their own affairs to keep them busy, much as mortals did.

Elune had ultimately done her a favour in setting her free from her role as high priestess. Now she had a demon to catch and all the freedom with which to do it. 

Her girls, bless them, smelled of excitement rather than fear. Pride bloomed in her chest. She pointed to the ground next to the boulder. 

“Anything else?" 

This one was tricky in fairness to them. Most of them had never been beyond the forest and reading dry soil was a difficult prospect. 

Pia leaned forwards, purple eyes wide. She seemed to spot the tiny ridge in the soil almost immediately. 

Looking at the draenai always startled her a little. But she had proven herself a good healer even if she had no idea what they were saying. Why, Myr was back on her feet with barely a scar to show where that wretched little blood elf had gouged her. Maiev bristled at the thought of him. Prince, indeed. Hah! She’d known something was amiss the minute she met him.

She ought to have known Dath’Remar in his foolery would establish something like a monarchy. As if blood lent itself to leadership.

She gestured with her foot, outlining the ridge. 

"The sand was freshly wet after the storm. He dragged his wings along it to hide his footsteps, but you can see where the takeoff pushed the soil together.”

Ki'ra sagged. 

“How can we know where he went?”

Nail looked up along the mountain side sprawling before them. In truth it was strangely shaped, ascending layers of flat plains and sharply slanted rock that almost looked like giant steps. 

“He’ll need water. The rock here is porous. It will gather in some pools. If we can find those…" 

"Will he need water?” Someone asked near the back. 

“He will.” Maiev crouched and mounted Swift in one smooth motion. “He is mortal flesh, despite what he would have you believe. We know he’ll fly for home. We can map the most likely routes.”

She could barely repress a tremor of excitement. For a creature that swore he would never be caged again Illidan had sequestered himself away behind some very secure walls. But now he was alone and perhaps weary, perhaps injured. Somewhere up that mountain side he would have to land and drink. Better yet, she had seen no birds fly over the peak itself. It might be too high for him to pass over, forcing him to land and make his way on foot.

They’d captured him before. They could do so again.

If she was clever about it, he wouldn’t get the opportunity to kill anyone else.

“Bring me a map.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Swift, Maiev's saber, is essentially a very large snow leopard with a stocky build, excellent climbing skills and a long tail.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Illidan survives the storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note a warning for animal death and past kinda-cannibalism about half-way down this chapter.

In a better situation, Illidan would have quite enjoyed this.

A fine strong wind carrying him aloft without the need for graceless flapping, that was a grand thing indeed. The company of clouds that glowed from within with light and power, that was perfectly agreeable. In another life he could have remained aloft for hours with ease, rumbling back at the thunder and dipping in and out of the rain curtain for refreshment.

This lovely thought assumed he was a creature with time on his hands. Assumed he had had a decent meal and a map so as to plot where he was likely to end up. In that life he could have landed on some distant mountain to rest his wings and returned bearing rare orchids in his talons, presented them to the Sin’dorei as a gift.

The Illidan of Before would have been happy enough, indeed. But he was that creature no more. That cell may as well have been a cocoon, rendering old flesh into something anew.

Ma’niqu had information he wanted. The incubus stank of portal magic, of pollen and plants from worlds a hundred thousand leagues hence. That knowledge torn from his head would be a fine addition to his map of the cosmos. He would use it to locate the demons most important planets, use it to break worlds asunder. 

Ma’niqu had died by his hand before, died with his heart torn bloody from his chest. The incubus had had the brazen nerve to appear to him wearing Tyrande’s form, all wrong. Too delicate, too slim, too weak.

Too kind.

The demon had learned from that and violent brief interaction. For the last three hours Illidan had hunted him, only for the wind to rise and the pressure to drop so sharply that all his scars ached. No natural storm was this for he tasted the bitterness of fel on the wind and heard the eldritch chants of shivarra. Ma’niqu was attempting to draw him into a trap of his own.

He would not succeed. Nothing had ever held him, not demons, not even the wardens in the end of it.

Besides, he could hear the ringing voices of the Sirens beginning to cut through the wind, hear Vashj’s deep alto voice vibrating with anger. The storm slowly unraveled around him as their combined harmonics plucked at the base threads of the shivarra chorus. But he had lost Ma’niqu in the mayhem and been carried many miles astray, right over the sharp mountain range that walled Shadowmoon Valley.

No matter. Incubui were prideful creatures. The demon would walk into his talons of his own accord.

In the meantime he seemed to have gathered companions. For all its barren appearance Outland boasted many intriguing creatures. Several large, rag-winged birds had fallen into a rough formation behind him, plainly deciding that he was some large cousin who provided decent shelter from the wind.

Wings tilting, he climbed to avoid a particularly nasty cluster of cold winds in front of him. Such vortexes dropped towards the ground with amazing speed and would slam anything in their grasp into the rocky mountainside, scatter their bones to be bleached in the sun.

The birds followed him, calling to one another in high, harsh voices. They seemed like a cross between a seagull and a crow, long winged and brazen. He thought they might be black in colour. Akama hated them and waved his stick to scatter them when he found them hopping around the courtyard. They seemed to be a feral species, without a fear of humanoids and quite willing to squabble with anything and everything over scraps.

Illidan was vaguely fond of them. He was a little feral himself, after all.

The knowledge brought him neither surprise nor distress. Something bone-deep would be amiss with him, if he were well after all that had happened.

It mattered not that he felt like a phantom in his own flesh, like a restless spirit possessing a corpse. His plans rolled forwards well enough. All he needed was time.

He had descended halfway down the far side of the mountain by the time he spied the rocky outcrop. That would shelter him nicely. With a quick twist of one wing he spiraled and landed in the lee of the outcrop, letting his wings hang loosely as he listened.

Outland was a dangerous place. Even for him. Maiev lurked around these chasms and cliffs and she seethed from afar as he sailed overhead, flicking his wings so as to frustrate her further. 

Setting his back against the boulder he flexed his talons and peered out into the rain. As if that would help him. Maiev hadn’t a magical bone in her body. She was completely dark in his sight, except for her eyes.

No matter. There was magic and hatred enough in him to drive them off. The wardens were an annoyance, beyond anything else. They ought to have sworn themselves to him when they realized the presence of the Legion here. But no, the hypocrites focused on clinging to an outdated role than being of use in the world.

For now there seemed to be little for him to do other than sleep. The wind screamed around him yet and the rain came down with fresh fury. Better to save his strength and return in one journey. He curled onto his side and draped one wing around himself. The rain was a soothing sound, soft as a blanket and a constant reminder than he was free and above ground.

No dreams existed in his mind, not anymore. Instead, he remembered. For all his long life there were a few particular memories he clung to, hoarded safe in the recesses of his mind as a dragon hoarded gold, wrapped in velvet enchantments that kept them safe against the wear of time. Every night they unraveled across his mind like tapestries unfurling.

His first spell, a simple cantrip to light candles. His saber companion, a spotted cat with a strange overdose of black fur and brilliant golden eyes, as aloof as Illidan himself. Teasing Malfurion over his first attempt at growing a beard. Carrying a bundle of swan feathers to Tyrande for her arrows. The first demon he’d killed, the light fading from its eyes, the sting of fel blood on his hands and the elation as he realized they could die. The sensation of night air on his skin after ten thousand years of dust on his tongue. The ecstatic pain of wings ripping from his back, the sensation of rightness, of completion. 

And now there was another, right at the very end. Strange that of all his warm and joyful memories he held high a chuckle, rapidly muffled behind a silk sleeve.

Occasionally he let his thoughts wander, imagined what silk felt like.

He was rudely awoken by something poking into his eyesocket.

The birds exploded away from him as he scrabbled up, claws striking sparks off the rocks. They were near invisible to him, between their weak magic and the sunlight that washed his vision grey. Where was his blindfold? He was not sentimental, but it was a comfort across his scarred face, the ragged remains of a scarf Tyrande had given him-

As if on cue he heard something choking. One of the birds was trying to swallow it.

“Fool.” He took the free end carefully in his talons and tugged it loose. After some feeling around he discovered a shallow rainwater puddle and washed it clean.

Thirst accosted him like a highwayman and hunger like a bandit, sharp enough that his wings flared sympathetically. Of all things he had a particularly visceral dislike of hunger. It reminded him too much of the cell, where magic kept him alive as he starved. 

Part of him thought, I’ll die before I go back.

Another part knew that that a lie. The soul inside him was too stubborn. Whether he liked it or not he would survive and endure.

Did Vashj realize she’d saved more than his life when she’d pulled him out of that cage? Did Kael’thas?

Yes, Illidan decided, Kael’thas definitely knew. The brightprince noticed all things, frayed hems and frayed tempers, tastes and preferences, noticed when a person had taken to pacing rather than sleep.

It was pleasing indeed to see him with his friend, to see him happy and relaxed enough to laugh. Though he would have to take care with that robe. Where had that scar come from, just under his collarbone? An intimate place to strike someone. Kael’thas had probably endured many an assassin. The thought made his wings open in something almost like anxiety.

Best he return to the Temple as quickly as possible. Keep manners on the unmannerly.

The birds grew calm around him for he sat still and quiet. Always he had considered himself Highbourne, but he had come of age amidst the animals of the forest and he knew their ways.

Now he struck, flicked out one wingbarb to skewer the bird closest to him.

The rest took away with harsh cries and he tensed. That would surely signal his location to anyone watching. Then he shook himself. If Maiev was here, she knew where he was. It was a matter of time, not a matter of chance.

The thought of eating raw made him hesitate briefly. The bird was limp and warm in his hand yet, twitching.

These days were supposed to be behind him.

No provision had been made for mortal survival in the Legion. No water, no rations. His time as a double agent had been one of privation.

Where he could, he broke loose prisoners of the demons. One woman in particular stayed in his mind. His attempt at freeing her from the soul pens had succeeded, but she had died of exhaustion, too weak to travel back to Azeroth. There hadn’t been time to learn her name, but she’d died holding his hand and smiling up at the stars. Free and not alone – wasn’t that as good as death ever was?

It hadn’t been the same thing as eating her. She would have wanted him to survive.

It had just been the contents of her stomach, a merger handful of grain, enough to keep him alive for a few more days. It was not the same as eating her.

If he was hungry, he would be weak. If he was weak, he would be vulnerable.

A new memory burst inside him, warm, washing away the darkness. Vivid colours danced across the insides of his useless eyelids. Oranges, reds, gold. A flower? No, a taste. Unfamiliar herbs, spicy and sweet. Those dinners Kael’thas like to throw at every conceivable opportunity. Highbourne celebrations had been marvelous things but their descendants took this to fresh heights, almost frenzied in their revels as if in defiance of all that had happened to them.

Kael’thas insisted on inviting every leader for festivities at least once a month. It was a good way to keep track of folk and their mood, as well as show off. The Sin’dorei chefs were talented creatures and created elaborate bone, beer and bread broths for the orcs, ornate fish meals for Vashj and richly cooked, thinly sliced cuts of gamey meat and fruits for him, dusted with finely ground mana crystals so that he could genuinely appreciate what he was looking at. A nice touch, that. A kindness.

These tiny elves had a great fondness for a spicy vegetable that tasted like a much-intensified pepper, and added honey to everything. Early on, they had presented Illidan with minced talbuk sown back into its skin so that he had to split it open and use a fascinating variety of forks to reach every morsel.

Said meals were usually so salted or so hot that he ended up drinking more than he would. He had even tried the wine, on one or two occasions.

He suspected the seasoning was a deliberate attempt to prevent him from discussing business. A thirsty person focused on drinking. A drunk person was usually a cheerful one. Alcohol had been a part of many Highborne fetes. He’d even been partial to it, though he was sure the portions had been much smaller.

Strange, the cyclical nature of it, that he should be reunited with Highbourne long after he thought them fallen. Was fate doing him a kindness or a curse?

With his mind firmly elsewhere the bird vanished in three mouthfuls, leaving only a thick and unpleasant coating on his tongue. With a roll of his shoulders he stood and cast about, scuffing the dirt so as to hide signs of his presence. Dawn had come erupting over the horizon for he felt the sun on his face even as the wind behind him promised more rain, and the sky in front promised snow.

With a final shake and stretch of his wings he was away, pointing his hooves and beating down strongly to gain height. 

The parched earth of the flat plains grew hot with shocking speed. Illidan leaned into the rising thermals, stretching his wings wide. Twas almost peaceful, drifting aloft in lazy spirals as the warm air buoyed him up. The strength of it alone carried him so that he needed only the occasional tilt of a wing or flex of a hoof so as to steer himself. He could even sleep on the wing in short bursts.

With his sight mostly gone he was immune to the dazzling effects of sunlight. By flying towards the sun he could make it difficult for them to track him. Alas, the wardens would tie themselves to their mounts and take turns sleeping so as to keep up with him. This dance was not unfamiliar to him.

It usually ended with Maiev kicking him in the head, wrestling a collar onto his neck, forcing magebalm down his throat.

No matter. The past didn’t necessarily predict the future.

But he did tuck his head against his chest and start to fly faster. The muscles of his back and chest twinged briefly and then adjusted to the new rhythm. The rain had passed over him but the core of the storm remained, magical and stubborn, the clouds clustered around the sheer peak of the mountain. Ma’niqu had planned this well. At that altitude the rain would turn to snow.

Ultimately irrelevant. It was quite possible to travel a great distance before enough ice formed on the wing to force him to the ground. Better yet, he could stop the bloodflow to his wings on a temporary basis. In this fashion he didn’t take the cold as badly as he ought have, didn’t bleed as much as his enemies wanted him to. It would be simplicity to fly within walking distance of the ancient draenei temple and shelter inside.

The snow would cover his tracks. The wardens would first swelter in their armour, then freeze in it. And unknown to them, the temple was dug right into the rock of the mountain and carried straight through it like a tunnel. In a day, he could walk through the mountain peak. By the time he came out the far side it would be night. The wind would pour down the mountainside like a river, carrying him with it, washing him towards home-

His thoughts stuttered slightly over that. Home. How sentimental of him. But ah, he had always been a fool.

The morning continued and he sailed with ease over the lowest step of the mountain, a near vertical section of steep, slanted cliff. Briefly he missed his old vision for he could not determine what kind of rock made up the mountainside. Smooth granite, or rough limestone? With the way the water tended to vanish out here, probably the latter-

Was that movement? He spread his fingers and hooves and let his legs drop, coming to a dead halt and hovering so as to peer down at the mountainside.

Ma’niqu? He had assumed the demon would have the sense to flee from him. But perhaps it feared punishment more.

It couldn’t be Maiev. Sabers couldn’t move that swiftly, particularly not during the day. The light disorientated them as surely as it did their elven masters. 

The mountain was still. He was alone but for the distant plaintive call of skylarks and scavengers.

All at once the taste of death and blood lodged in his throat, sat on his tongue, choked him. Bile burned in his stomach, scalded his throat and it was all he could do to hold back a cough, to relax the muscles tightening in his midriff.

He needed water. But even something as simple as that was a trial in Outland. The waters of this world were secretive and tended to hide underground while the mountains themselves were so porous that rain dripped right through. But in a few places, it pooled and he knew these places, having taken to making maps of the terrain as he flew. All the maps of Outland he could find were inaccurate. Illidan needed to know exactly where he was going.

There. The welcome coolness of moisture in the air, the thrilling of water-crickets. Twisting one wing he flipped back the way he came and circled. A shallow pond shimmered at the bottom of a rocky crater, already surrounded by a cloud of humming flies. 

It seemed empty. Even the wardens would be hard pressed to vanish in thin grass and dusty flatlands.

No point in hesitating over it, advertising his presence. Folding his wings with a leathery snap he dropped like a stone, flaring them out at the last moment so that he came to a comparatively gentle landing. He let them hang half-open by his flanks, ready to be away in an instant if need be.

The water was bitter but palatable. He grimaced as his hooves sank into the mud and took another handful to wash through his hair.

Illidan remembered being vain about his hair, dark and beautiful as the night sky. Remembered falling out of trees in his attempts to steal honey and gather eggs for potions to keep it shiny and healthy. It had gone into a matted mass during his imprisonment, for the wardens gave him no water with which to wash himself. Even now it was rough in his hands, though he’d cut the worst of the knots out.

Kael’thas seemed to have nice hair. Perhaps he would ask him about some softening oils, next time he decided to have a dinner.

Pebbles fell, rattling on stone. All at once his thoughts stopped and he was still, ears twitching upwards. Did someone dare spy upon him from that hilltop there? They would regret it. Lifting his head he pulled the air in over the roof of his mouth, tasting it as a cat would. But the water hadn’t washed his tongue clean. All he could detect was blood.

No.

Iron.

He jerked to his feet as Maiev burst out of the water in front of him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kael'thas reveals a secret weapon, and Maiev works off some anger.

“You do realize I have to protest this on every conceivable level, yes?” Rommath sounded irate even as he helped Kael’thas pack, plucking a crumpled raincloak from the bottom of Kael’s saddlebag and refolding it into a small cube.

“I would expect nothing less.” He frowned in concentration, wedging a mana crystal between pairs of socks. “I truly hoped we could have more time. But I need you here.”

He hadn’t an intention of dragging his barely-recovered friend into the wilds. Rom could barely climb a stairs at the moment, never mind a mountain. But he could stare down anyone who tried to cause trouble and bully folk into submission by sheer force of personality. Kael’thas had oft relied on Rom’s influence to manage his small court in Dalaran, back when true leadership had seemed a long way off.

How simple that seemed now, how frivolous. But it had had its uses. It was one thing to learn how to read a room at his father’s knee, another indeed to do it alone without the protection and respect afforded to the king. He’d learned how to determine interpersonal politics, personal agendas and family hierarchy with a glance while Rommath’s rather intense presence served as a distraction.

The lessons of Dalaran and Silvermoon translated across time and worlds. Despite Illidan’s distant behavior he was as a stabilizing force for the factions of the Temple. No one wanted to directly challenge the person who’d subdued Magtheridon. His status as a formidable fighter and powerful sorcerer intimidated those who might otherwise try to create trouble and dissent. Akama’s antics in the inner sanctum had made this abundantly clear.

Kael’thas had absolutely no desire to defuse an orc uprising or joust the more aggressive members of his own cabinet, those whose pride ached at being beholden to anyone but themselves.

He had worked swiftly to ensure such mutterings grew no greater. The courtesans of the Den were loyal to him and kept an ear out with whispers of dissent, while his frequent soirees gave no one the opportunity to speak without either he, Lady Vashj or Illidan in the room. Letting the nobles interact without oversight was how a monarchy ended.

With Illidan gone the malcontents amongst them would start to do more than talk.

With Kael’thas gone, they would grow very brave indeed.

When they first came to Outland it had taken him, Lady Vashj and a number of soldiers together to rescue Illidan. But now they simply didn’t have time. It took precious minutes to scramble together soldiers, minutes for them to prepare, hours to fly towards Illidan. The Sin’dorei soldiers relied on griffons for transport and though they were fine creatures they were limited by mortal bone and muscle.

Al’ar suffered no such deficits, a creature of elemental flame and supernatural speed. Without the need to restrain herself for weaker flyers she could cover the distance with due haste. More importantly, the yet-rumbling storm allowed them to leave with a comparable lack of fanfare. A man and a phoenix were far less conspicuous than a whole heavily armed unit of magi and warriors.

It was to Rommath’s credit that he understood this enough to not try and argue Kael out of it.

“I will send Kayn and his fighters after you. Leave signs of your presence that they might track you and at least try to be careful!”

Rommath wedged jerky into the emergency pockets of Kael’thas cloak as he spoke. Despite the panic of the situation and the speed it required, Kael grabbed his hand.

“Is that Farstrider jerky?”

“No!”

“It is!”

For all his teasing, he seethed within. Illidan had put them in a precarious position for the sake of one demon!

But he would be a liar if he said there wasn’t a small part of him excited. Reckless as it was, dangerous, it was liberating indeed to go anonymously rather than as Prince Sunstrider.

He chided himself as they descended into one of the more secluded courtyards. He couldn’t treat this as an adventure when he was flying right into the teeth of danger. Maiev had almost gutted him last they fought, slipped through magic and his guard alike as easily as a shadow. It wasn’t by luck that she had captured Illidan so many times, it wasn’t luck that she could hold her own against magic and steel alike.

Rommath conjured a rain shield over them as Kael’thas summoned Al’ar into being. The phoenix was indignant as he reached out to her through their shared magic. She metaphysically snapped at his fingers and tucked her head beneath her wing, sulking. Only with much coaxing did she deign to manifest.

Al’ar landed feet first as any bird upon her perch, and the cobblestones of the courtyard were abruptly wreathed in steam as talons the length of his forearm touched down. She seemed to materialize out of the very air, appearing as two immense golden eyes framed a heartbeat later by a ruby shadow.

All at once as a solid creature loomed over them, massive wings curled so as to fit within the courtyard walls. The rain hissed and dissolved away upon contact with her plumage, glowing with the gentle undulating light of a bed of embers. He reached out, humming soothingly.

No wonder she was grumpy with him. It had been a long time since they’d flown together. He simply hadn’t had the time. How wretched of him. He dug his fingers deep into the warm feathers beneath Alar’s chin and scratched gently.

“Once we move out to the new palace you can have a whole room of your own, so you have somewhere to fly even when it’s raining. How does that sound?”

Al’ar cooed at him and stooped to press her massive head into Rommath’s chest. He huffed, but Kael knew that was a show. Rommath had knitted the fledgling phoenix extremely detailed feathered bodysuits to keep her warm whenever she molted.

“I can keep folk from asking questions for perhaps a day, at most.” Rommath spoke softly and swiftly as he helped Kael buckle into the flying saddle. It bore a number of straps for his legs and a high back so that he would be protected during sudden aerial maneuvers or impact. He nodded in response as he tightened a knot around his waist, one handed.

“After that they will figure out something is amiss. If we are lucky they’ll just think its illness. That will have them sharpening daggers perhaps, but not drawing them.”

Particularly not when the bulk of the populace adored him. But he had to be careful with thoughts like that. Many a leader had been dragged from power by their hair for daring to think popular support couldn’t wane.

“You’ll need to keep an eye on the Flameweavers. They are convinced they have some distant right to the throne.”

Though if what Illidan said about his great aunt Deh’lia was true, there might well be a claim there. He squeezed Rom’s wrist reassuringly and patted Al’ars shoulder as they unfurled their wings.

“I’ll be back before you know it. Don’t kill anyone while I’m gone.”

...

Illidan flapped once to give himself height, drew his legs up and kicked. Maiev twisted to evade him. He felt her glaive cut past him, bounce off his left horn and nick his ear, slice downwards as she tried to sever his wing from his shoulder.

She’d added hooks to the circular glaive, extended her reach.

Fel roared inside him, bursting out in a blistering wave to wash the world around him in magic and push her away. He saw her clearly now, highlighted in green. His arcane powers rose in concert and arched away in a psychic message to the brightest beacon he could feel. Kael'thas instantly summoned a sword. He almost smiled at that, and quite without meaning to pushed the sensation of his injuries onto the prince's awareness.

Come to me.

The magical call took a mere instant, but in that time Maiev had already moved smoothly past him and turned on heel. The air split around her circular glaive, spinning in a complex pattern as she faked an attack, testing his reflexes. The weapon would dazzle a normal man, confuse them as to the location of the cutting edge.

Not him. He growled as magic poured into his palms, into his eyes, into his mouth. He didn’t have the time to stay here, fight. But oh, he wanted to.

Maiev laughed, harsh and sharp as the clash of cymbals.

"Eloquent as always. Are you a dog to bark at me next?" She punctuated this with a feint, switching from foot to foot quick as a boxer, driving him back towards the water. He summoned up his glaives with a thought and knew some relief as the familiar weight dropped into his hands.

“Oh, honestly. That’s never worked for you before.”

“You’ll not take me again.”

“Won’t I?”

A dozen stings peppered his left side, bringing with them a spreading numbness. The other wardens were here. Maiev lunged to grab his weakened arm, cracking her elbow into it in a motion that might have broken bone before his transformation. He headbutted her and twisted his horns to lock them into the ridges of her helm, forcing her head aside from him, weakening her grasp.

The numbness was magebalm, a powerful sedative. The natural flow of his mana stuttered, but fel magic roared up into its absence. It took only a twist of the magic fused into his bones to filter it out into his lungs, a cough to spit it back out at her.

She scoffed at him even as the metal of her helmet corroded and finally jerked back. He pursued her as closely as her shadow, lashing out with the barbs of his wings to keep her retreating. A second wave of darts hissed towards him. He flicked a wing and sent felfire crackling out to strike the top of the crater. Shrieks followed after and the smell of burning hair.

Maiev dived on him, bulling past his glaive to tear at his stomach with her sharpened gauntlet. He grunted as she drove a knee into his gut and grabbed her arm. Her armour buckled under his hand as he hauled her off her feet.

"You're out of your jurisdiction, little warden."

Maiev spat on him and clicked her heels together. Metal slid over metal and he tossed her away as a poison blade snapped forwards out of her boot. She kicked at him as she went. The blade was so sharp he felt at first nothing, then a line of numb fire in his thigh. Some new toxin, no doubt.

"Justice knows no boundaries." She bounced back onto her feet with ease and hurled her glaive as if it were a discus. He knocked it away with a sweep of his wing and dropped low, kicking out to catch her in the chestplate. His blow left a deep dent in the metal and she hopped back to whistle a sharp note that rang in his ears.

Six wardens on saberback leaped over the side of the crater. Strange sabers, low slung, long tailed, fast. Fast enough to catch up to him. One of them covered twenty feet in a single bound and he had to dive to avoid the creature, taking a nasty blow to the back as he did so and half tripping on his wings as he rolled upright. Maiev cackled.

“I made them especially for hunting you.” She deflected his guarding glaive with a flick of her wrist, grabbed the leading edge of his wing and slammed her knee through it. The light bones broke like dry wood but no matter, for now she was in arms length of him. He hooked his claws into her pauldron and bodily hurled her at the oncoming hunters, knocking the nearest one clean off her mount. Magic poured through him, shrouded him in darkness as he roared.

“You think yourselves prepared for this?”

But they descended upon him as one. A particularly enthusiastic hunter leaped towards him with a rope, propelled by two of her sisters. He hurled a glaive and knocked her out of midair, knowing brief satisfaction as armour cracked. Her saber uttered a cough-like cry and leaped to grab onto his arm, dragging him back from her. Twisting, he hit the creature a backhanded blow. It reeled back from him to crouch protectively over its rider, yowling through a broken mouth. The warden screamed at him in fury. 

The rest of the riders split in front of him like water flowing around a rock, forming alternating circles that made it near impossible to predict where the next attack would come from. Maiev had hauled herself onto the largest of the sabers and circled at a steady pace, eyeing him.

He couldn’t allow her time to think.

Ropes whirred around him, looped over his horns, tightened on his wings spurs, trying to immobilize him so that he could cast no magic, make no movement. A lesser mage would have been undone by distraction and fear. But fel relied on momentum and flow and it was nothing at all to set the netting ablaze, to render himself free once more. Maiev’s saber hissed and snapped at his wingtips only to be driven back as he set his glaives spinning in a circle around him, catching his breath.

“This will be a lot less upsetting if you surrender yourself to us. You know you can't escape me.” How he hated that voice. The gentle one that she adopted when trying to manipulate someone. For a part of him flinched, a part of him was afraid to anger her even more. She would starve him again, and-

He wasn’t a prisoner anymore. His voice was ragged as he snarled at her.

“What know you of gods or demons?” Fel rippled through him, setting his markings ablaze. The wardens turned their faces aside, blinded, and their formation disintegrated as they were forced back from him by an expanding ward dome. All except Maiev who leaned into the green light, indifferent to magic crackling off her armour, and dragged her sharpened gauntlet against the shield with a noise like talons on glass. 

“Enough to know a monster when I see one.”

“You see nothing.” He flared his wings, illuminated with emerald tracery. “You know nothing. You never even heard Elune speak, only your own voice echoing back to you from the depths of your mind.”

The wardens gasped at such blasphemy to a former high priestess. Maiev only tilted her head like a crow considering the best way to break open a carcass.

“And what voices echo inside that head of yours?”

The demons inside him muttered at that, startled. How did she know? He forced them down.

The respite had given him enough strength to gather himself and jump, beating his wings to propel himself out of the crater. The right one hung loose as an autumn leaf, too brittle of yet to carry him in true flight. No matter. He had legs with which to run.

Arrows peppered the earth around him. He heard Maiev whistling orders.

The sabers hadn’t leaped up to chase him. He ripped his blindfold loose and felfire burst into the air before him, leaping like a living thing to the scraggly brush and dry earth. Metal tripwires crackled and burned away, twanging like the cords of some immense musical instrument. They had laid traps in his path, hoping he might step into danger.

Felfire burned with an uncanny ferocity, clinging to the earth although there almost nothing to devour. But it did him no harm he loped through the whirling flames, smoke parting around him like a curtain. The wardens would be burned to a crisp if they tried to follow him. He almost fancied he could hear Maiev snarling with frustration.

Escape. Getting entangled with the wardens again, in any way, was a waste of time.

He needed something big.

His wing itched mightily as the bone finished fusing itself back together. He flicked them open to catch the warm air rising off the flames, let the lead talon of each wing cut into the dust and turned in a swift circle. It was always tricky to draw a perfect arcane ring, but wings made it easy enough. And fel wasn’t too fussy. It just wanted something to channel it.

Maiev burst over the crest of the hill on saberback and launched herself towards him, heedless of the flames. No matter, for he was already aloft- what was that she held?

The harpoon cut all the way through his thigh and locked tight. He jerked to a halt in mid air. The contraption was set into the sabers tack and it immediately braced itself against him. Maiev herself jumped onto the chain, crouching almost to the ground as she dragged him back. 

He threw all his strength into rising and felt her feet lift off the ground.

But four of her sisters had gathered their courage enough to dash through the withering felflames, protected by their armour. Now they leaped upon the chain and their combined weight told against him.

He closed his wings and dropped. The wardens lurched back as his resistance suddenly stopped, tumbling over one another. A number of them lost their grip on the chain. Not Maiev, of course. Illidan landed lightly enough, twisted so as to grasp the harpoon and snapped the shaft in half. He spread his wings menacingly at them as he straightened.

"You cannot harm me in a way that matters."

“Are you certain of that, Illidan?”

He didn’t like hearing his name from her. He summoned another shield as darts whistled towards him, and took two steps back. More sabers leaped the edge of the crater and came towards him with shocking speed.

No one spotted the runic lines he’d dragged into the ground. All arcane mages knew that a circle kept magic stable. A fel sorcerer knew that a circle didn’t have to be unbroken. A good sorcerer knew that guidelines were enough if one knew what one was doing.

Felfire flared through him with wonderful intensity, roaring into the stone beneath him. A land of limestone was a brittle one indeed, hollow beneath their feet with caves and crevasses and all the raging floodwaters that vanished so quickly from the world above.

The sabers sensed it coming and yowled, leaping to safety. He heard claws scrabbling on rock as his fel surged through stone, forcing the fissures and fractures of the earth open. A yawning chasm ripped open beneath the wardens, the ground folding in upon itself in a jagged gash. Someone tried to dash past him and he knocked her back with a sweep of his wing. The magic faded as it reached him, leaving him on the edge of a sheer cliff.

“Illidan!”

Maiev charged him on saber back and they struck him with all the force they could muster, sending all of them rolling towards the cliff. Saber claws raked across his chest and Maiev grabbed a hold of his hair. He reached to shove his claws through the eyeslits of her helm, heedless of the saber teeth in his arm.

As if pain was anything at all to him. As if any of this mattered.

Maiev flipped herself off the saber, dragging his head back and exposing his throat to its teeth. He made himself go limp, the sudden weight pulling everyone off balance. The saber lost its grip upon him and skidded past them. Illidan braced himself and jerked loose of Maiev’s grasp, leaving her clutching a chunk of scalp.

“Something to track you by? How generous.” She tucked it into her belt as she spoke and leaped at him once more.

Illidan dropped flat and rolled. Maiev overshot him and now she was on the cliff edge. He attacked without thought, lashing out with wings and glaive alike in an attempt to push her over. She sank her claws into his forearm, so deep he felt them meet in the middle and set her heels into the edge of the cliff to wrest him towards it. He sank his wing talons into the rock and braced himself so that the two of them were briefly frozen, neither able to move the other.

Maiev huffed, put her foot on the harpoon still lodged in his leg and pushed it all the way in.

He was distantly aware that it hurt, that his leg went dead and he lurched forwards. But he had spent ten thousand years with very little to do other study their armour. The metal of her forearm was buckled from where he had grabbed it earlier. He took hold of it again and his magic rose eagerly to the task, surging into the miniscule fractures in her anti-magic armour, breaking them apart.

She seemed more annoyed than anything as her gauntlet popped loose and struck at him one final time as she fell, her nails tearing into his face. He snapped at her fingers and took two fluttering steps backwards least she somehow lunge upwards to grab at him again.

Her saber screamed and charged him, teeth bared. He ripped Maiev’s gauntlet from his arm and hurled it into the sabers face so that it reeled back from him with a wail.

He gathered himself one last time, springing upwards into flight. His left leg failed him but his wings were strong enough to make up for the deficit, enough to drag him by force and blood up out of the dust cloud.

All at once instead of iron he could smell snow. The sun was warm on his back once more. No harpoons cut towards him, no arrows. He had escaped.

That won’t last, part of him thought grimly.

He didn’t need it too. All he needed was time. Setting his wings to their broadest, he leaned into the wind and once more began to climb towards the mountain. 

So distracted was he that he didn’t notice six large winged shapes rise from the mountainside and set themselves after him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rommath finds himself under siege by well meaning Sin'dorei, Illidan takes a moment to breath and the wardens are just fine, Thank You For Asking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up for death mention in the warden section. If you enjoy this work come find me at Happyorogeny on tumblr!

Rommath had considered the entire situation in excruciating detail and come to a firm conclusion:

He did, indeed, hate everything.

He did not, however, hate everything equally. The main target of his vitriol varied from moment to moment. But as of now it was this rain. Outland’s rain was different to that of Azeroth. He was quite sure it was sapient enough to know malice, for it hammered down as if angry and had leaked through the one loose stitch in his right shoe.

He despised how cold he felt, stiff and weary as if he’d walked day and night in driving rain. Kael had been warming the air around them for the past day and he noticed the absence more keenly than he cared to admit. 

He hadn’t commented on Kael’s interference. No need to embarrass both of them. Instead he organized Kael’s papers and saddlepacks, knowing well that he tended to live in a state of barely organized chaos. No wonder he’d lost the last report. Rommath had found it crumpled in his bed between three blankets. Doubtless he had told himself he would read it before sleeping and then immediately dozed off.

He hated the workload that left Kael so weary that shadows haunted his eyes, that his voice had developed an edge like a rusty razor.

He also hated this cough, a wretched thing that sat on his throat and caught him out at the worst moments, such as after climbing this entirely ridiculous staircase. It took him far too long to get back to Kael’thas’s chambers. He probably had a room of his own somewhere, but he would hear nothing of that. He needed to be where Kael’thas ought be, to carry this deception off. It couldn’t take more than a day.

It was absolutely going to take more than a day.

He decided he hated Illidan also, given that he was a flashy braggart with too much hair and a ridiculously husky voice who appeared out of nowhere to give folk a shock. Who walked around with magic rippling off them like that, preening and showing away? He was worse than Kael’thas after he cast his first fireball, an event that had had the prince strutting like a cockerel for six weeks.

Was this honestly the same Illidan that had saved arcane magic, that had planted the seeds for their culture? Rommath had some serious concerns.

He paused a moment to take a deep breath. The healers had said to avoid stress, as if that were possible, had told him to rest and recuperate from his illness. They’d looked worried when he laughed, wondered if the illness could lead to minor hysteria. Well, he didn’t quite have a solution to the greater problem of Kael’thas is in danger and I can do nothing but he did have a way to calm himself. Somewhat. A number of travelling merchants had set up in Quel’Thalas, selling anything and everything at reduced prices to the desperate Sin’dorei. He had picked up some exceedingly ugly green wool from an enthusiastic goblin saleswoman. While he waited, he would cast on a scarf and order his thoughts as he worked. And by the end, he would have something useful.

He would gift it to Aethas, he decided in a fit of spite. Somewhere public so that he would have to pretend he appreciated it.

Ah, what a relief it was to be petty again. Surely all other problems were small and manageable if he had time to be petty.

His knitting went well for three hours, while the rain hammered down relentlessly. He kept time by his stitches. Inspiration struck him by the 35th row. He wasn’t the only one here with the interests of the Prince at heart.

Do’rai was late with breakfast. He opened the door only a crack so that she couldn’t see into the room.

“Ah, excellent. Could you be so kind as to call Mei’le? I think she’ll be in the morning garden.”

“Oh!” Do’rai looked a little taken aback as he took in the tray. “Of course!”

Mei’le, at least, appeared with due speed. Perhaps a little too much speed, for she was clearly out of breath when she knocked. She almost managed to make it look elegant, leaning against the doorframe in a draped ivory gown that alternated between loose and figure hugging. He was briefly impressed by the tight weave of the fabric. 

“Why, good morning Grand Magister, fancy meeting you here.”

“I asked you here.” Daft creature.

She had also brought that nice man from the Den, Xi’an. He had some interesting if indistinct ideas about the combination of varying schools of magic, and a very pleasant voice. Rommath froze briefly. Mei’le nodded in understanding.

“Too much?”

Rommath managed to steady himself.

“Can I talk to you alone, a moment?”

“Of course!”

Xi’an straightened, inclined his head with much elegance and sauntered off. Mei’le paused the moment she stepped inside, but had the good grace to wait until the door was closed before turning on him.

“What have you done with Kael?”

“Excuse me?” His hackles went up instantly – how dare she accuse him of doing anything to Kael’thas?! And threaten him with that tiny knife while she was at it! “Put that silly thing away! I need your help!”

She gasped suddenly, big brown eyes going even wider.

“Oh my goodness, they’ve eloped haven’t they?”

What? Kael’thas had said nothing of a paramour! That explained amount of crumpled paper in his wastebasket. Kael was a dreadful romantic, who pined and sighed and developed an alarming tendency towards maudlin poetry. 

“Who!?” 

She pursed her lips, somehow without smudging the red lipstain.

“Why, him and the Highlord, obviously.”

“What? No!”

“Don’t lie to me! Illidan’s enchanted with him, never shows his face in the Den unless the prince is there.”

For Sunwell’s sake- although Kael’thas was very beautiful and that might explain all of his idiot prancing on the balcony last night- Rommath shook himself. 

“No, that isn’t the case. Illidan is- away on a mission and Kael’thas has gone to aid him.”

She nodded with a wise air.

“A good cover story. Somewhat uninspired perhaps, but-”

“I need your help keeping an eye on things while they are gone, and keeping the fact of their absence a secret.”

“Of course! We can say he’s sequestered in council with yourself, and I can act as witness.” She plopped herself onto the divan with an alarming lack of decorum. “How long must we spin this out?”

…

Illidan’s magical display turned out to be mostly show and little strength. As if a fall of twenty foot would do more than irritate them! Maiev hopped upright and dusted herself off, indignant at the loss of her gauntlet.

Her ears twitched inside her helm as she listened to the watchers calling to one another, counting each voice. Her heart slowed as she heard them, one by one. 

He’d almost killed Ki’ra. An arrow from one of her sisters had drawn his ire instead, distracted him away from the fallen watcher. A second more and she would have died. Maiev had been too far away to reach her.

She found herself clenching her fist so hard the metal buckled. She had tackled him directly to distract him from the others. She had been certain of it, that he would focus on her beyond all other threats. 

Foolish of her. She had been certain of many things. All had come to change.

Maiev closed her eyes a long moment.

In any decent world she would be at home in the forests. All of them together. They would forsake their armour for mourning veils and their hunting songs for laments. She would spend her night making cairns, drowning in her grief. That was the way of sorrow. It swallowed a person, became a part of them. In any decent world they would be enduring the process together, in peace, in darkness. 

Instead she was here with those who hadn’t been murdered. Instead of grieving they suffered anew. Instead of drowning, she burned. They were denied peace and place to weep because no one was inclined to do their duty.

Irrelevant. Soon enough she would have his head, and could finally set down her weapons.

Limestone crunched underfoot as she trotted over to the edge of the chasm to squint upwards.

Those sisters who had escaped the collapse were tying rope to their sabers and throwing the coils down into the crater. Those still stuck in the shallow collapse were digging one another free, or forming stacks so as to climb out. Truly this was a cursed place, with the flesh beneath the surface rotting away like a months-old carcass.

Swift’s head appeared over the edge of the cliff. She mewed upon spotting Maiev and started to purr loudly. Relief swept through her. Swift sported a nasty gash upon her forehead but seemed hale enough aside from that, bright eyed and energetic.

She had feared Illidan would kill the innocent creature out of malice.

Swift yowled and tried to reach for her with gigantic grey paws, showering her with pebbles. Though the greysabers had performed well, their personality still needed work. She had had neither the time nor the generational effects to encourage the stoic attitude befitting a wardens mount. 

Maiev continued hammering a handhold into the rock. It was porous and weak enough to yield to her as much as it yielded to magic. Swift wailed at her. The silly saber was stopping anyone from reaching her with a rope. She eyed her briefly and then whistled, calling the saber down. She landed with surprising lightness and trotted over to her. The foolish beast had fetched her gauntlet and deposited it proudly at her feet before rolling over for a belly scratch.

She took a moment to comb the burrs out of her fur. Swift had lost her saddle somewhere in the fight, but her coat was thick enough for Maiev to cling to her back as she leaped upwards out of the crater.

Maiev ran a quick eye over her fighters. She’d seen no fewer than three occasions where the greysabers had whisked their riders away from a deadly blast of magic or a lethal kick. Illidan had knocked a few of them senseless. Pia was in the process of setting a badly broken leg while the watcher in question held on to Ki’ra for comfort. Maiev knew at a glance the woman would never run again. Another greysaber crouched over her warden, nuzzling at her. A rider badly injured, but not dead. She had to tense herself so as not to move forwards. She had been a healer once, but that wasn’t her role here. She would interfere with the work of the skilled medics.

Leaning back, she searched through the women again. Lyr, Cai and Lief all moved with the stiffness of wounds that would get them killed. She urged Swift over to Lyr and dismounted so as to take a coil of rope out of her hands.

"Go back to the camp."

Maiev was already turning away as the warden startled upright.

"What?"

"Illidan didn't kick you in the head. You heard me. Back to camp. Send up Zia and Ni'lya as replacements."

"But-"

Maiev didn't quite turn back. She had not invited discussion. An order was an order. But she did pause. She had asked only for volunteers to come to Outland. With half their sisters dead, the other half were enraged enough to follow her without hesitation.

Lyr was a steady woman if perhaps overly sedate, good with sabers and meticulous to a fault. She had lost a lover in Illidan’s initial escape. She had every reason to stay, every reason to want Illidan’s head. No wonder she was stubborn. Maiev schooled herself to patience and took her by the elbow, towing her away from the group.

"Sash wouldn't want you dead out here. Neither do I. I have neither the time nor the earth to bury you."

Lyr looked away, flushing indigo. Perhaps she thought Maiev hadn't noticed them, that she would disapprove. Maiev noticed everything. She simply didn't care. Why would she? The wardens weren't statues of marble, though they were often treated as such. As if they were cold and hard as their armour, devoid of every heartfelt longing.

“Go back. Rest. And send up a talbuck for the greysabers.”

Lyr finally relented and went to her sister companions. They were injured, but not so badly that they couldn’t return to the travelling camp.

She restrained a brief twitch of irritation at the thought of the train following them. As well as her elite fighters and their mounts she had collected a few independent druids, a scattering of Broken fighters and camp hands and no small amount of dranaei varying from rangers to healers to madmen. She felt as if she were at the head of a travelling circus rather than leading a stealthy hunt in search of a monster. But she couldn’t deny that the range of skills was useful to them in this dreadful place.

Pia had been one of the first healers to join them, against Maiev’s express wishes. She had smuggled herself along under one of the talbucks they brought for meat and milk. The act of stealth had been impressive enough that she allowed her to remain. Maiev was something of a healer herself, and she knew enough to realize Pia outclassed her. The wardens were low on allies at the moment. She wasn’t one to disdain a knife just because she fought best with the glaive.

Pia trotted over to her now, blue hair tucked neatly around her horns. She carried a small earthenware pot and began to daub its sticky contents carefully onto the gouges Illidan had left on her shoulder.

"It's quite alright Pia, please tend the girls."

Pia blinked at her with huge purple eyes and pointed. Sure enough they already bore the green bandages that advertised her work. She had learned early that Maiev would refuse treatment until everyone else was seen to.

Maiev relented and extended her hand for examination. She’d often enough ended up with fel poisoning after fighting Illidan, for even stray flecks of blood or spittle seemed toxic enough to harm a normal creature.

“Where did you go, during the fight?”

Pia closed her eyes as she often did when translating something back to herself, then wrapped her brown cloak around herself and lay flat on the ground. Maiev was almost impressed. The dranaei would indeed to invisible to a casual inspection. 

“Good. Be sure to keep a greater distance next time. He grows more wicked with fear.”

She’d done this dance before. For all his cowardice Illidan had only grown stronger over time, and more vicious. It usually took three encounters before he was tired enough that they could actually drag him down. Even then he was hale enough to fight them for hours, and had left many a warden so crippled as to be beyond fieldwork.

Had left many dead. Too many.

She would challenge Tyrande over this when she returned. She would have satisfaction from the woman who usurped her as High Priestess, even if it killed her.

Pia glanced up at her anxiously as the rage swept through her, quick as a forest fire. Maiev shook her head.

“Continue your work.”

All her anger could be held in abeyance. What she needed now was patience. And afterwards, she could grieve. But not now.

That first clash had been informative indeed. She closed her eyes to replay it back, image by image. Her memory had always been ironclad and acute, like a series of paintings laid out one after another. Hateful as it was to see Illidan in her mind, there were important things to note. He’d put on weight, a tricky thing for someone who flew everywhere. So this Temple of his wasn’t on the verge of starvation. What a shame.

In addition to that he had powered through injuries that would have stopped him in his tracks before this nonsense with the skull. And the wings were a problem. Fast and sharp, with a long reach. A risky move on his part, but one that had carved a deep groove into her chestplate.

They would weave iron fibers into the ropes, so that he couldn’t cut himself free so easily. And someone or something to act as a constant distraction so as to protect them from magical attacks.

Well, she had always thought of herself as very diverting.

She lifted her head to peer towards the clouded mountain peak and cursed this wretched sun that left her half blind. Clair and the others had gone ahead to lie in wait upon the mountain. By now the lack of smoke signals surely told them they must be ready. They might even be fighting him already. But she could hear nothing, see nothing…except…

She was a stranger in this place, but something about the slope of the mountain made her wonder. Those could be rugged paths, long ago carved and now abandoned. She lowered her head and closed her eyes briefly as they watered in protest from the light.

“Pia, tell me, is there anything up there that someone might fly to for shelter?

…

Illidan climbed into the sky until the wardens were swallowed by silence and distance.

Three times he almost turned around. Many a grievance he had to visit upon them. Three times he wrestled all his violent instincts back. There was work to be done elsewhere.

Satisfaction sat warm in his chest. Over a dozen of them couldn't capture one blind man? For shame. Maiev was getting slow in her dotage. In a sudden surge of energy he tucked his wings in and dived, twisting in a corkscrew spiral as he went. The laughter that echoed back off the mountain was unfamiliar to his ears, though it burst from him like music from a harp.

How pleasing the knowledge that a castle with thick walls and strawberries awaited him. It had been long and long since he'd had a home to be sick for. He rolled onto his back to feel the sun on his face, letting himself dip backwards through the sky.

Kael’thas would have a fit if he saw that, convinced he would crash. A very elegant fit containing phrases such as have we considered and please bear in mind.

Spreading his wings once more he flipped over and glided to a light landing upon the mountainside. His left knee almost folded beneath him, so that he briefly stumbled and had to flap most inelegantly to remain upright. Insects squirmed out of the scree around his hooves and wriggled away from the felblood dripping off his wings, trickling down his leg. It hissed and smoked upon loose stone as he studied the harpoon yet wedged into his thigh.

Somewhat clever, he allowed. It had been simple enough for him to stitch the restorative abilities of fel onto the sensation of pain. The brands etched into his chest and shoulders combined with his own sheer stubbornness allowed him a near-impossible level of control over fel energies. By the time he killed a demon they were usually covered in his blood, and his injuries already closed. 

Maiev had seen this new skill and adjusted her tactics. How to harm a creature that healed as quickly as she hurt them? Weapons that shattered, shrapnel, poisons. Always this was the way with them. She could run him into the ground so he sprouted wings. When he could fly she created nets of wire, greysabers, harpoons. He fought alone, she brought a mob.

The harpoon had cut right into the thick arteries of his leg. It needed to go. Hypocrite that she was Maiev could likely use some form of druidic magic to track him through it. He wasn’t so blind as to miss the druids in cat form amongst them, glowing emerald around the edges.

Vashj would sigh at him for returning with injuries and hide her frown behind a fan. Even after all this time she retained the mannerisms of a noblewoman. Kael’thas would pretend not to notice a gaping wound- drawing attention to pain and weakness seemed a gauche act amongst them- but he would stay nearby while discussing trade opportunities and scouting reports, radiating heat. Later, Illidan would receive an entirely coincidental invitation to a party with a variety of restorative herbal teas.

This could be done slowly or it could be done with speed.

The result was a burst sizzling blood upon the stones of the mountain and decision to take a few moments rest upon the rocky slope. It was peaceful up here, without wardens or demons to harass him. He stretched his left wing carefully, feeling for stiffness that might affect his maneuverability. Once he had returned to – home - he would go down to the drying room, startle all the laundry workers and borrow a few warm towels so as to loosen the sinews.

How odd to find himself suddenly wistful. Though the mountainside was beautiful and solitude was often bliss, he missed the noise of the temple. Long and long ago he had enjoyed isolation and the peace it brought. But he had had his fill of it. He wanted to be blinded by light and life, deafened by sound. He wanted to sit like the moon surrounded by stars, with voices just on the edge of his hearing, with wisps of subtle perfumes and bright flecks of arcane experimentation.

What a strange twist of fate to have all the best parts of Highbourne existence returned to him. What a curse that they might be dying.

He could do with their company now, truth be told. Imprisonment had left a hollow place inside him, a place of echoes in his chest, a hunger. It was satiated near the brightprince. Their conversations were brief, but Illidan had never spoken so freely to anyone in so long.

He would betray him eventually. He would grow desperate. Illidan knew what desperation did to a person.

He could limit that desperation. He just needed to...closing the portals had given him time, but not infinity. Kil'jaden had realized he was more than a mere nuisance. An army was massing to deal with him. He needed something to push them into retreat. Retreats became routs.

Fortunately he had had time to prepare a plan. Demons replenished themselves. That had always been the ineivitability of it. They mocked you as they died and returned to hunt you down. It might take centuries but they came again and again, wearing their targets down by persistence. Not unlike the watchers, really. 

Demons renewed. But not in the Nether, and their worlds were fragile. If he could destroy their resources, he destroyed their ability to wage war. A portal backlash would do it. He had studied the structure of world crusts, the delicate balance of rock upon magma, shamanic writings on the structure of planets and the birth of worlds. As with all things they were marvels and yet delicately made. He didn’t have to rely on brute force. Set one thing askew and all others would falter. Such was the way with planets, with bodies, with societies. A thing off-balance was easy to push over.

Finding them ought to be the simple part. The Legion was hardly subtle. But they kept the location of their portal hub planets a secret. He'd almost had it out of Ma'niqu, dragging it from the demons mind.

No matter. He would find the demon again. Or another would be sent after him.

Vashj knew his ways, had known him before the time of wings and scales. She understood he kept his plans close to his chest. Kael’thas did not. All he knew of Illidan was stories, his actions in Felwood, the fact he’d fallen to the wardens once before. That type of thing didn’t tend to engender faith. 

He wanted to tell Kael'thas, more than anything. Already the Prince doubted him. But such knowledge would make him a target. Could scupper them all should he turn coat.

A shadow flickered over his face, too large and too close to be a bird, too quick to be a cloud.

He had lingered too long.

…

Rommath was under siege. Kael’thas hadn’t been joking about the determination of some of the noble families here. He’d had to use a teleport spell on a particularly determined healer to stop him from getting in the room.

The word was out that the Prince had fallen sick. While everyone had their own pet theory, the favorite now was mage-flu. In a way he was relieved. For about an hour there had been talk of the plague coming through the portal and he had wanted to bite his knitting needles in half in frustration. That was a hysteria he did not wish to calm.

But the plague was marked by a long incubation period, by bloody coughing and paralysis. It wouldn’t have struck Kael’thas with such speed or such silence.

Rommath’s instincts served him well for Mei’le had great knowledge of the temple and its intricacies and rapidly proved herself invaluable. Everyone would talk to her and even those that didn’t trust her could be persuaded. But she was one woman. She reappeared to Rommath around midday and whispered that Akama had vanished.

“Perhaps he has gone to work in privacy, with Illidan gone.”

“Perhaps. The orcs also seem…tense.”

“Aren’t they always?”

“Not like this. I think- folk are talking of a meeting between the Prince, Akama, Vashj. They’ve noticed they were left aside.”

Rommath supposed that did look quite grim from an outside perspective. He would have suspected foul power plays, if it were him, he would have suspected alliances made against him. 

And now he heard footsteps hurrying towards him. As if he hadn’t enough to worry about. He opened the door before Do’rai could knock, causing her to almost fall in once more.

“What is it?”

“The orcs. They heard tell of secret meetings. The elders want a council with the Prince.”

Of course they did. Rommath pinched the bridge of his nose.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Illidan encounters a fresh batch of wardens and Rommath engages in diplomacy.

Illidan burst away from the mountainside, throwing his right wing wider so as to readjust for his weakened leg. The hippogryffs screamed as he slammed into them. Steel-spurred talons bounced off his horns. He felt at least two sets of claws try to tangle on him, wings beating around his head, the metal whips of their riders cracking in an attempt to drive him down. 

He broke through with a burst of fel. A hippogryff was innately magical enough for him to see them as coloured outlines, like images sketched in chalk. These one gleamed purple and green, their wings pointed like those of a falcon. Too small and fast to be true battle-birds. But that meant little- many breeds had appeared during his incarceration, and the bulk of the Kaldorei airforce was now made up of these medium weight fliers. All of them seemed sun-proof, able to fly without elaborate mantles that had been standard for gryffs in his day.

A third dived upon him from above, the rider shrieking at him to surrender. Rolling mid-wingbeat he struck out and kicked the gryff in the chest. The bones of its sternum shattered and it dropped away from him, shrilling, as his momentum flicked him upright to swipe at a warden who ventured too close. Her gryff retreated, hissing. But now claws cut into his shoulder from behind. He twisted into the blow so that they lodged against his clavicle rather than carving into his neck, and headbutted the gryff. It back winged in a daze. Fel crackled after them with a snap of his wings. The warden shouted at him as his wounds wove themselves together. 

“What manner of creature are you?!”

He could smell leather polish. They traveled without heavy armour, relying only on hide to protect themselves. Maiev had likely sent them on ahead the moment they picked up his tracks, sent them up the mountain so that he would fly into them when he escaped their initial scuffle.

Wingbeats overhead. Multiple gryffs flying as one, trying to hide their numbers. Six of them all told. 

An arrow nicked his ear as he pulled his wings in tight and dived, barrelling through those that tried to barricade him and accelerating so swiftly that it slicked all his hair flat against his head. Flight looked easy to those on the ground. They didn’t realize the importance of weight and momentum up here, nor the skill required to orientate oneself into the vertical physical space of the sky. And beyond that, mapping the flow and drift of the winds was an art. 

Illidan had oft fancied himself something of an artist.

He dropped two miles in seconds, enduring forces that would have knock most flyers insensate, outstripping the gryffs with ease. His stomach fluttered as internal airsacs folded flat and a dozen valves in his chest snapped shut so that the blood didn’t rush into one side of his body. Fresh blood roared into his wings in readiness for sharp movement and even his magical gaze sharpened so that the world didn’t become an incoherent blur around him. 

All that effort wasted on wardens. Honestly.

His sudden dive had given him a headstart. He closed one wing and swept close to the curve of the mountain, putting its bulk between himself and his pursuers. His wingtips skimmed rock as he tilted to fit between the two jagged pillars he knew demarcated an icy mountain river. At this level the flanks of the mountain bore the erosive scars of water, deep grooves with steep sides and sudden waterfalls. He felt cold mist on his chest, felt stone walls clipping at his wingtips. 

Remarkably, one of the wardens was skilled enough to survive the plummet and even follow him into the confines of the valley. Al’iah, part of him thought. He’d reckoned she survived his escape. She’d grown up with the mountainous regions of the Kaldorei forests. Thin air and sudden drops were no difficulty for her. The gryff itself landed on the edge of the canyon so as to sprint after him. The air ripped around it as it leaped for him. Wings flaring, he drew up and spun to grab the creature. He knew this terrain better than they knew themselves. The warden was blinded by mist, but he could see everything. Their attack didn’t drive him into the riverbed but off a waterfall and into open air. And now he, bigger, heavier, had a hold on his tormentors. 

He dragged them both into a spin. The gryff didn’t try to break free of him but fought with the ferocity of both saber and falcon, kicking at his stomach with its hind legs and snapping at his face with a wickedly curved beak. He knocked the bite away with a sweep of his horns. Al'iah stabbed his hand with a tiny dagger as he sliced through her reins and reached for the saddle itself, determined to cut it right off her mount. She drove the blade through his forearm and twisted, trying madly to lever him away. He barely felt it. 

“Will you kill us both upon the mountainside!?” Al’iah shrieked. He could only smile. 

A shame. She’d always been nice to him. Brought him his meals on time, and still warm at that. 

With a scream and the loss of several feathers the gryff broke free of him. He flicked his wings open and rolled smoothly out of their headlong fall, clipping the gryff with a roundhouse kick as he went. Al’iah dived past him. He considered giving chase briefly and dismissed it in almost the same heartbeat. He could hunt them one by one, yes, but he had places to be. The wardens had scattered themselves over the mountainside in a vain attempt to keep up, left themselves laboring in the dead wind on the flank of the mountain. He, on the other hand, had dived right into the warm thermals rising out of the valley. 

He spread his fingers and hooves to catch as much air as possible, filled the airsacs in his stomach and dismissed his glaives. The secret to aerial supremacy was height. These fliers were built for speed and maneuverability, not stamina, not strength. The slowest of the gryff riders could only watch as he soared past with a taunting flick of his wings. She wasn’t brave enough to try and attack him alone, and wouldn’t risk him using her corpse as a weapon against her sisters. 

Now it became a contest of endurance. By the time they reassembled to come after him he had climbed one hundred feet and left the sky littered with explosive runic circles. These were double ringed symbols, designed to lie inert until triggered by movement. He had thought these advanced, once. Even one would have left him bedridden for days.

The wardens’ seething anger was almost palatable. They had to clear their path as they went with arrows and darts. And with every moment he climbed higher, cutting through wispy clouds and shaking himself so that ice didn’t form on his wings. They couldn’t follow him above the snow-line. Their mounts couldn’t fly in a blizzard. Already the gryffs labored in the chill air behind him, wheezing. Soon they would need to decide- fall back and allow him to escape, or struggle on and have their mounts freeze to death in mid-air or on the mountainside where they fell. 

He could almost feel snow on his face. He was nearly of level with the temple. He just needed a little bit of time.

One of the riders finally shrieked in protest and urged her gryff into a vertical climb, the others falling into a V shape behind her. A reckless maneuver. Did she want her mount too weary to fight him when they drew level? He flicked his wings at them tauntingly as they swept past beneath him, testing his reflexes, tempting him to dive upon them. Hah! As if he were a fledgling to lose his place to them out of aggression. Al'iah moved as if to throw something. She was foolish indeed if she thought he wouldn't avoid an arrow from this range- 

Sulphur. 

The smell was so out of place that his wings stuttered. Was Kil’jaden here to harass him as well?! No- but the scent only grew more potent and now it was coming towards him, something small and fast and humming most menacingly. 

A shrapnel bomb, arcing up towards him. 

He tossed up the first shielding ward he’d ever learned, shimmering purple in front of him. It was solid enough to protect him from the razor sharp blades that erupted outwards, but not from the force of the explosion itself. It felt as if he had flown at full speed into a wall. Darkness clawed at him. He didn’t feel himself fall. Instead, Kael’s voice sounded in his mind, gentle and clear as chimes in the breeze.

“Illidan?”

Quite without thinking on the strangeness of it, he called back. 

“Come to me.”

Foolish. He was old enough to know a hallucination when he experienced one. But it was enough to bring his awareness crackling back, enough for him to gasp and open his wings and level out of his tumble.

Unfortunately he was now at the wardens level. The gryff riders pulled into a loose diamond formation and surged as one towards him. One he knocked out of the sky with a fel blast, another he warned off with a lightning fast strike of a wing-talon. But the other four were on him, spread out so that he couldn’t hit more than one. 

He drew fel out of his marrow and used it to throw himself backwards out of their clutches, stinging them with it as he went and slashing at a gryff with his talons, half gutting the creature. Better yet, it sliced right through the main saddle strap. She shrieked as her saddle slipped, grabbing onto her mounts ruff in search of stability. One of her sisters flew to aid her as the other three realigned themselves and charged him once more, sweeping past and cutting at whatever they could reach. He let them pass, hovered and started to climb only to take an arrow in the ribs from the wardens below him.

He wished suddenly and sharply for fighters of his own. Not just allies, but creatures like him, creatures who could peer through rock and demon flesh, who could keep up with him on a hunt, who had overmastered the instinctive terror demons evoked in mortals.

A thought for another time. 

The gryff formation charged him one more divided around a blast of fel, one sweeping to either side while the third flew overhead. He turned to drag her down only to immediately have the other two fall upon him, snapping at his ears and tearing at his wings. One of them tackled his left wing and dug her thumb into the deep wound Maiev had inflicted. He clamped them in to escape her, dropping even further, and scalded the lot of them with a burst of felflame. 

The gryffs shrieked and recoiled, hovered, and then came at him again. 

_“Duck.”_

_“Brightprince?”_ Sure enough Kael’s thoughts brimmed just behind his words, golden and warm and yet somehow hard, like a newly minted coin. 

_“Never fear, I’m here to rescue you.”_

Rescue was a strong word, but let him think what he would. Illidan cork-screw dived away from two gryffs and looped beneath them, putting his back to the sky rather than the mountain. 

_“How are you speaking to me?”_ He had powerful barriers around his mind, and long distance communication like this took centuries to master. Many mages found it beyond their grasp entirely. 

_“Oh, I just reversed and then enhanced the after-haze of your spell with mine. Usually I wouldn’t on account of privacy, but it’s rather important at the moment that you move about ten paces to your left.”_

All at once the air grew warm around him. He thought his scalp might blister. The wardens hissed in protest. Beyond them the sky diffused yellow and pink and orange, swirling through each other as if liquid. For a moment he thought his vision restored, thought that he gazed upon a sunset. 

Kael’thas seemed to fly out of the sun itself on phoenix back, shrieking a Thalassian warcry as he came. Felo’melorn burned in one hand and a fireball in the other, but he plainly had no intention of tactical intervention. Instead Al’ar rammed into the lot of them, bowling them all apart and snapping at those that didn’t get out of her way fast enough. Illidan brayed in delight as the two of them dived past and leveled out, swinging back up so as to approach him. Al’ar cawed at him with a voice like the ringing of great bells. He had a soft spot for Kael’s pet. She was the only creature he’d come across who had not flinched away from him. 

The gryffs recovered well, reforming into a block of four and showing little fear though Al’ar was a third again their size. Illidan almost felt their attention shift away from him, focus on the Prince. Kael’thas would be an affront to them indeed, the arcane-addled spawn of the treacherous Highbourne. Someone who had attacked them to snatch their prey from their clutches, killed their sisters. Near as much a menace as Illidan himself was. 

He was almost offended.

Kael’thas had somehow taught himself enough ancient Darnassian to hurl insults at them. Where had he learned language like that? He was using female-to-female challenges and threats. 

Ah. 

Vashj. 

The wardens rallied themselves and Al’iah lobbed more explosives in his direction. Illidan felt as much as heard Kael’thas blow two bombs out of mid-air with well-placed flame spears. They were testing them, to see if they’d defend each other. 

The gryffs charged Al’ar in a solid vortex of claws and whips. Fire unfurled like a banner from Kael’thas, crackling into the midst of the block. But they were wise in their formations for the square broke apart with ease. One dived to tackle Illidan as he fought upwards, pushing him back from the main fight but keeping far enough from him that he couldn't grab her. One each went to Al’ar’s wings, clinging and biting so as to weigh her down. He heard Kael’s voice soar over the melee like a hawks shriek, outraged at such an assault. 

The fourth gryff flew over Al’ar’s back and in a fit of insanity, Al’iah unbuckled herself to drop onto the firebirds back. She staggered briefly and dropped to all fours to steady herself, then drew a short dagger. Al’ar plainly knew she was there for she twisted as if to throw her off, only to find her movements stymied by the gryff-riders. The warden scrambled towards where Kael’thas sat at the base of her neck. Did he realize the danger?

Mana flowed once more in reaction to his concern. Fel burned through his chest. A strange conformation but no matter- he spat it like a dragon at the warden hovering above him and leaned into her attacks, forcing them both upwards through the sky though both she and her mount rained attacks upon him. 

A wound to his shoulder healed so swiftly that the gryff’s talons became entangled in him. He twisted sharply so as to break the steel spurs off her claws, shattering the talons beneath. The warden’s whip stung like flames where it struck him. He reached blindly and felt it lash over his forearm, then twisted so as to coil the whip towards him and drag the gryff closer. The warden was wise enough to drop it, but already her mount swept forwards for another pass at him. He barely avoided the raking of claws across his face. 

The other three gryffs assailed Al’ar, dragging on her wings and tail. And here their training told against the firebird, for Al’ar was not a beast bred for combat. Coming under attack by other creatures of the sky was a new trial for her and she staggered in the air, dipping away instinctively in an attempt to protect Kael. His defensive fireball went astray, singeing the nearest gryff. Al’iah was right on top of him-

Even Illidan flinched at the light that blazed forth. The warden faltered, lifting a hand to protect her eyes from the magical beacon. Kael’thas freed himself from his seat and turned to face the warden challenging him, sword whirling. Illidan knew a brief burst of horror for he was a whole head smaller than her and the other riders were reaching for sleep darts and poison arrows- 

And they weren’t watching him. Oh, they would regret that.

He hooked his claws into the gryff before him and accelerated with a burst of magic, putting himself on level with the combat and throwing his captives full-force at the rider mauling Al’ars left wing. They knocked each other askew with a cry. The remaining wardens startled as he appeared with a roar and a cacophonous beating of wings. 

Kael’thas laughed and took advantage of the distraction to settle into a stance more suitable for a duel as Al’iah lunged for him once more.

The two wardens he’d driven back righted themselves and dived towards him. Al’ar spat fire at one on them, setting fire to its wingtips. The gryff squawked but their training held and they attacked him nevertheless. Illidan let them land a few glancing blows on his wings, driving him back, luring them away from their formation, away from Al’ar.

Kael’thas and Al’iah were brawling something proper. A warden was essentially a glorified assassin and Al’iah certainly fought like one, wielding what seemed to be a set of nasty daggers. Illidan heard Kael flick one out of her hand and drive the hilt of Felo’melorn into her chin in a backhanded strike. She reeled back as Kael’thas cackled. 

“Come, are you fighting me or flirting with me?” He pressed the advantage, forcing her along Al’ar’s back. 

Illidan felt his remaining nerves fray. What was he playing at? She was half-blind and knife fighting a man with a sword, why hadn’t he killed her yet- ah. Performance. Duels amidst the Sin’dorei seemed to be as much about display as they were about actually winning. It wasn’t enough to triumph, the enemy had to be humiliated. 

Al’iah spat blood at him and hissed something Illidan didn’t quite catch. But he did hear the word Anasterian.

Kael’s ears went flat with rage.

Illidan deflected a swipe of a gryff’s talons and reached up with his magical senses into the sky overhead. Al’ar had approached the situation much as he would prefer to, climbing as high as she could and circling before dropping in to attack. But she was a phoenix, a creature of elemental flame. She heated the air around her just the same as Kael’thas, to a much more dramatic degree. A mile overhead the air burned hot from her touch. 

Just as the warm winds rose, cold air fell. Sometimes with incredible power. 

For the last few minutes, the remnants of Al’ar’s passage had grown colder and colder. And now they tumbled like an avalanche, entirely invisible, nearly silent. Illidan reached for his fel and flicked himself out of harms way as the current rolled across them. The first gryff squawked in panic, wings folding in an attempt to shield herself from some unknown force. The second almost swerved out of harms way, only for him to catch them by the wingtip and spin them back into the vortex. 

And finally he was free to launch himself upwards by main strength alone, barreling into the gryff clinging to Al’ar’s other wing. The rider cried out at his sudden appearance and he shook them both savagely so that they couldn’t bring their weapons to bear on him. This one undid the saddle of her own accord, clinging to her mount with her knees as it broke free of him. He tossed it aside in disgust. Al’iah cursed and retreated, stepping off Al’ar’s back and dropping onto her gryff. Al’ar twisted to snap at them and Kael’thas shot a crackling orb of flame past Illidan, incinerating the wing off one of the gryff’s sneaking up on him. It tumbled past with a cry. 

It was too much. With the appearance of Kael’thas and Al’ar the wardens had lost their numerical advantage and attacking all three of them together was madness. They whistled to one another and disengaged. Two dived to catch their falling companion. Illidan set his wings to chase them. They thought they could chase and harass and cut him to pieces and then simply flee-

Kael’s cry of near-panic brought him back to himself. Al’ar was failing, her head drooping as she turned in a descending arc towards the mountainside. She had suffered in the attack even worse than he, for she had no glaives and no armour with which to defend herself. Feathers fell from her wings and chest like snowflakes, fluttering and burning. Her blood turned to smoke in midair. Kael knelt at her neck, leaning forwards and patting at her head-ruff anxiously. She wasn’t falling, not yet, but it wouldn’t take long. 

He flicked his wings and tilted after them, calling out so that the two of them heard him approach. Aligning himself carefully he rose to meet her, taking the weight of her chest across his shoulders and stabilizing her descent. Al’ar was hot to the touch, enough that it instantly cauterized the wounds across his back. She was falling too fast for them to land near the temple. No matter. A walk in the snow had never killed anyone. 

The cold front smacked into them like a solid thing and he jerked in surprise. His horns clipped the wounds in Al’ars chest. She cried out in protest and thrashed, her beak slicing over the leading edge of his wing and cutting it open to the bone. Kael’thas called out to her in Thalassian, leaning forwards to soothe her and still her struggles. 

“Lord Illidan? Did she hurt you?”

He didn’t answer, focused grimly on landing them both in what seemed like a promisingly deep snowbank. Kael’thas startled him by leaping to the ground while they were some ten foot up, tumbling into a snowdrift. Illidan sensed his spell before he saw it. Lights glittered in his vision as arcane fires winked into life, outlining a clear track on the ground before him. 

…

Rommath stepped out into the orcs courtyard and immediately knew something was amiss. 

Much as their cultures differed, the scene before him was obviously some form of court. His attention was instantly drawn to the hand-knotted banners cascading from the roof. Tricky work that. Maybe he could find some of their weavers after this and discuss how they convinced horse-hair to take dye. The intricate weaving framed an immense upper table, bowed beneath dozens of serving platters and what seemed to be an entire roast talbuck. The table itself was surrounded by orcs, who ate standing rather the sitting down. He hadn’t seen these individuals before but that had to be the chieftain Kargath and the heads of various clans. 

Sure enough all of them seemed to be in a state of low-pitched competition, jostling against one another so as to take better slices of meat, shouting over their neighbours and slapping their hands on the table to emphasize their words. All twelve of them appeared to be there. Odd. He would have thought at least some of them would be on duty. Was there some kind of celebration today?

Now that he scanned the room again it seemed as if every orc in the Temple was here. So great was their multitude that no one reacted to his appearance, aside from one strapping orc maid near the door who immediately bellowed a greeting in broken Thalrassian and tried to press a flagon of questionable origin into his hands. He took it out of politeness and wondered at the dusting of white chalk. Between heavy boots he spied a hastily scribbled circle on the ground, large enough to encompass half the room.

All his latent suspicion bloomed anew, dark and jagged. 

The feeling in the lower sections of the court was akin to that of a rowdy tavern. To reach the upper table he had to walk through a crowd that looked three seconds away from breaking into a brawl. Oh, honestly. Was this supposed to intimidate him? He’d had noblesons poison his tea for daring to be a commoner amidst them. He’d looked them in the eye while drinking it and proceeded at his normal pace to find his favourite healer. 

Perhaps he ought have brought something of a retinue with him. Kael’thas never introduced himself to someone new without being surrounded by at least four beautiful people. He swore by them as displays, as distractions, as decoys. Rommath had sighed at him after such a pronouncement. Kael’thas had immediately grown indignant and started to scribble out a diagram. 

_There is an art to entering a room where one is expected. You are making a statement whether you want to or not. So best you control that statement._

To this end Rommath had worn his usual robes, nearly the same shade of red that Kael’thas wore, and borrowed some of Mei’le’s blusher so as to make his runic tattoos more pronounced. After some consideration he’d chosen one of Kael’s phoenix broaches to pin his robe at the waist. Some might think that overstepping himself, but they were likely the same ones who would poison Kael at the first opportunity. He needed it to be plain that he represented the throne. 

_Now, where possible you never enter a room alone. Unless of course that’s what you’re going for. But in general you enter a room with at least four of your most faithful courtesans so as to distract the foolish._

A fight broke out in front of him, immediately gathering a gaggle of onlookers. He veered around them, flattening his ears. This was all deliberate. The noise, the rowdiness, the crush of huge people. All designed to put someone on the back foot. Well, Kargath had another thing coming indeed. 

_You go in front and let yourself be a marvel. Those who will look must be dazzled, so as to give the courtesans time to scan the room. You need at least one firecracker to catch the gaze of anyone foolish enough to be outwardly hostile. You need two to be familiar with the art of protection, and charismatic enough to keep some of the attention off you. And all of them must be able to circulate around a room with ease, and return to you with information while you play the rake._

A group made things easier, supporting one another as flying buttresses supported a cathedral. But Rommath couldn’t bear the thought of bringing Xi’an and Mei’le with him. What if it had turned out to be a trap? 

He could almost hear Kael sigh at him. 

_These things are always a trap. Just not in the way you think._

For all their noise and outwards posturing, the orcish court wasn’t so different from the elvish one. And because it felt familiar, he felt something off in the energy of the room. Folk acting as if all were normal but…tense. Anticipatory. 

Something here was out of place. 

Of course. There in the corner was Akama, reclining upon stuffed cushions and bearing an expression of immense self satisfaction. 

Rommath was glad for his collar. He’d never quite learned to control his facial expressions as Kael had. His desire to attack the broken shaman would have been apparent to all of them. 

_Look at the hounds._ That voice sounded almost like Lor’themar. Rommath could practically feel him leaning forwards, inspecting the room. _Animals tend to have their priorities in order._

An immense worg sprawled at Kargath’s feet, bearing the scars of many battles and the immaculate fur of a pet much-loved. She didn’t stare at him, the stranger in their midst, but leveled her grim gaze at Akama. The other hounds seemed to be deliberately avoiding looking at the shaman. Their snouts pointed away but their eyes strained, trying to watch him sidelong. 

In contrast Kargath had watched his progress from the moment he entered the room. But now he pretended not to notice him. He was expected to stand here and wait to be spoken to. 

Rommath had very little patience for such attempts at a power play. He’d started weaving his magic the moment he’d stepped over the threshold and now let it roll outwards in the form of a firework. It burst against the walls of the courtyard and rebounded back in a shower of gold and rose sparks, enough to get anyone’s attention. Several of the chieftans startled and then cackled upon spotting him, delighted by such a brassy manner of introduction. Some of the orcs behind him grumbled, others laughed. And all fell silent as the Kargath eyed him. 

“I summoned your excuse for a prince, not his lapdog.”

Excuse for a prince? He thought he had the rank to summon Kael’thas? Lapdog was the best he could come up with? And worse again, the insult gave Rommath time to actually look at him. To notice the cloak bound with a hounds tooth so that it could be easily shucked away, to notice the presence of a combat knife cleverly disguised amidst cutlery. 

It’s always a trap, just not in the way you think. 

What had Akama said to them?


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kael'thas catches up to Illidan, and the blizzard catches up to them both.

A lesser man than Kael’thas would have been sulking by now. This was exactly what he wanted from his day, to have the stuffing knocked out of him by a Kaldorei and then end up ear-deep in a snowdrift. Who wouldn’t want that? This was probably Lor’themar’s idea of a great time.

Al’ar and Illidan had landed somewhere to the left of him with no small amount of snarling and snapping. She called for him anxiously, but the cold air had robbed his voice of all its power. He settled for superheating the snow around him, melting his way down to ground level and then forcing his way outwards.

The first thing he saw upon freeing himself was Illidan, completely still in the snow.

Not again!

But he shifted as Kael’thas watched, shaking the ice out of his hair. He looked about as indignant as a cat moved out of a sunbeam, despite all the severe injury and bloodshed. Fel swirled around his talons as he hefted himself upright and stared up towards the sky, wings spreading as if ready to take off after any warden that poked her nose through the cloud cover.

Well, one wing. The left hung loose from the second joint. His mission plainly hadn’t gone well even before the appearance of the wardens, for his horns were chipped as if someone had gone at them with an axe and his left ear sported a fresh notch. The skin of his shoulders and chest bore so many slashes that they crossed over each other and formed a hatchwork pattern. Some of them sliced right down to the bone- he could see it gleaming white amongst all the blood. They were etched with runes as well, green and burning and the match of those on his skin.

Kael’thas froze briefly and knew some strange horror. Could he not feel that?

Al’ar uttered a long keening note that had him breaking into a run. He settled onto his knees in front of her, heedless of his cloak, overwhelmed by shame. Al’ar was bleeding, this beautiful creature who’d never known pain or discontent.

It was abundantly clear that she couldn’t fly them home. Her colours were so dim as to appear like those of an ordinary bird and one of her wings drooped sadly from the shoulder, limp in the snow. But her eyes were bright and she tucked her head in against her chest, boastful. They couldn’t quite speak as two people might, but they could communicate well enough for him to understand her smugness for she had triumphed over many foes and rescued the – grumbling spikewing? She must mean Illidan.

“Dear heart, you simply must return to the fire realms and heal.” He started to move his hands in an unsummoning arc. Al’ar closed her beak briefly around his fingers in protest and Illidan stiffened behind him. He supposed it looked dangerous enough from the outside, for Al’ar was big enough to take his arm off if she so chose. But she wouldn’t wound him any more than he’d hurt her, no. It was all show. He knocked on her beak and started to scold her. She flattened her ruff and released him to snap her beak in retaliation.

The snow crunched behind them as Illidan approached, spreading his good wing so as to give them some shelter from the wind. Much to his surprise Al’ar immediately croaked in greeting and started to pluck at his arm wraps, grooming him much the same as she would Kael’thas.

Interesting. Al’ar tolerated many creatures, but she didn’t really like anyone aside from himself and Rommath. Illidan looked sidelong at Kael and then combed his hands through her feathers in response, paying particular attention to those at the back of her neck that she couldn’t reach herself. 

“Can she heal from such wounds?”

“When she stops making a fuss about going home, yes.” Al’ar croaked in final show of protest but finally huffed an agreement and vanished in a particularly noisy crackle of sparks, returning to the elemental plane where she could heal from the indignities visited upon her.

Leaving them alone. Kael’thas straightened and carefully smoothed his cloak, immensely grateful for the gloves Rom had forced onto his hands. They’d crashed right through the cloudline onto a particularly grim, snowy expanse of mountain. All around him lay bare boulders and encrusted ice. He was glad that his ears were tucked into a flight cap, undignified as it was.

Illidan was looking at him with an expression he hadn’t seen before. Confusion. Scrutiny. Was he in shock? He had suffered much injury and mauling. Kael’thas really did not wish to try and handle someone going into shock on the side of a mountain.

“It seems that the wardens have retreated before our might.” No, he was fine. “You make quite the timely intervention, brightprince.”

He supposed this was the third or so time that he’d appeared to aid him in a dire situation. Not that Kael’thas was counting or anything.

The skin along Illidan’s ribcage twisted and buckled as bone snapped back into place beneath. Kael’thas felt his gorge rise briefly and even Illidan seemed to barely repress a flinch. Well, it made as good an opening as any to open negotiations.

“You are injured. I have wrappings enchanted by our healers-”

“No. We must proceed up the mountain.”

Kael’thas flattened his ears inside his hat. He had been worried Illidan might say something like that.

"Would it not be wiser to find shelter and wait for my soldiers?”

"You brought reinforcements?" Illidan turned as if they might pop out of the snow.

"Not quite. Al'ar and I are swiftest alone. But a regiment of our finest soldiers approaches on griffin back."

Illidan curled his wings around his shoulders and turned his face into the wind, contemplative.

"This will turn to ice before they reach us. We cannot stay here. The demon will be trying to reach the Black Temple.”

“Which one, Maiev or Ma’niqu?”

“She’s not a demon. I could kill her if she was.” He shifted, snow crunching under his hooves. “Can you walk?"

He could, but he would mightily prefer not to. Already he felt a blister forming on his toe. In addition Illidan had long legs and he had absolutely no desire to struggle along after him. Then again, perhaps the chunk gouged out of his thigh would slow him down.

“When I spoke of us strolling together in order to discuss future plans, this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”

Illidan didn’t react to his attempt at humour and stood rubbing the backs of his wings together, like a person polishing their palms in thought. Kael’thas restrained a sigh. He knew that Illidan couldn’t help his social idiosyncrasy and occasional rudeness. All those years alone probably lent itself to obsession rather than etiquette.

He eyed the mountainside and tried to swallow his annoyance. He had intended to whisk Illidan away on Al’ar and flee in a rather dashing and efficient fashion, taunting his attackers as they went. Now it seemed they were doomed to trudge like oxen through the cold and the dark. Kael’thas was a leisurely kind of creature. He liked paths. He liked to take his time about things. Folk who hiked for pleasure were confusing to him. A walk in the rose garden now, that was a lovely thing indeed, perhaps followed by a nap and a late dinner with close friends.

He resigned himself to a miserable slog as Illidan folded his wings in and set off ahead of him. But though this might be grim, no need for it to be horrid. His magic unfurled around them into a sphere of warmth and he took care to fashion it after a hearthfire- warm, gentle, comforting. Not a bonfire, not an inferno.

Illidan said nothing, but his shoulders relaxed. There was a decent chunk of skin and hair missing off the back of his head. Kael’thas winced at the sight of it. Someone had torn it right off him and the wound was particularly vile, a mat of bloody hair and green scab. He ought to braid what remained to stop it sticking to the wound. But he’d noticed Illidan was particular about his hair. No one went for the half up, half down style and deliberately pulled two strands forwards to frame their face like that unless they cared about how they looked. Perhaps when everything else had changed it was nice to keep one thing the same.

The climb was worse than he could have imagined. Rommath had muffled him in a hat, gloves that went to his elbows, a scarf that could roll up over his face. Within minutes he was sweating, or freezing when the air made its way through the layers of fabric to bite at his skin. Even belted at the waist his cloak became an encumbrance, tangling around his legs. The constant climb snatched the air out of his lungs. And that was where the slope was shallow enough for him to stay upright. In a number of places it was so sheer that he had to cling to half-frozen rock as he climbed. Mei’le would sigh at him for destroying the nail colour she’d lent him. 

Illidan in comparison seemed to be in his element. His talons found purchase upon even icy surfaces and his hooves ended in a pick-like shape that allowed him to clamber up the smoothest of rock walls with ease. Combined with the sheer length of his arms and legs he was able to jump and haul himself upwards with no apparent difficulty. If his injuries hurt him, he showed no sign, aside from perhaps moving slower than usual.

Much as such a display made him feel his ineptitude, Kael’thas was grateful that he went ahead. Illidans’s talons left pockmarks in the rock deep enough to act as handholds. He wondered if that was deliberate. 

He was also, unfortunately, self-aware enough to know where all this curiosity came from. He’d always had a soft spot for the outdoors type. It had held true for Jaina and resulted in a brief and well-received flirtation with Lor’themar many years ago. It didn’t help that he sometimes got flashes of an actual personality underneath all of Illidan’s distant indifference and bursts of aggression. Someone clever and curious and intensely melodramatic, someone he wanted to get to know. He could almost feel him struggling to open up, like a flower closed so long it barely remembered how to bloom.

It felt like Illidan wanted to get to know him, too. As if he were trying to remember how to interact with someone, outside of orders and hierarchy.

Well, now was hardly the time for that. Even if he was getting a great view of everything from back here.

Illidan crouched and jumped up a sheer rock face to perch atop it, wings spread as he tilted into the wind. One still hung crooked. His ears twitched upwards for the briefest moment before flattening down again. The sight was such a rare one that Kael’thas came briefly to a pause. Illidan rumbled and flapped his wings restlessly, showering him with loose snow.

“Hurry.”

Kael’thas growled despite himself.

“I’m going as fast as I can.”

“Maiev is two miles behind us.”

He came to a halt.

“How can you know that?”

“The wind shifted. I can smell her. I know how quickly she moves. Come.” Illidan reached out and half-hauled him up the cliff. He resisted the urge to fuss about his claws and pulled threads.

It grew darker as they climbed, until the clouds were almost black. Kael’thas now had to concentrate to maintain his bubble of heat. And even inside his gloves, his hands were growing numb. A worrisome sign in and of itself. He was always warm, heating every room he went into.

The rain began after an hour, falling in a misty grey sheet that made no sound but soaked slowly and surely through every layer of clothing. Had he been a lesser man he might have screeched. Instead he settled for grinding his teeth, and promised himself a nap. Illidan seemed equally displeased, pausing ahead of him to flap his wings and readjust them around his shoulders. Much to his surprise, he waited for him to catch up and then draped his wing across him like a cloak. Kael’thas squinted up at him.

“Won’t you get cold?”

“The terrain around here is too unsteady to risk going alone.” And he paused and flashed him a smile that was gone quicker than moonlight on the waves.

Illidan had absolutely been a flirt in his day. Perish the thought. 

But as they climbed the rain turned to snow. Snow made Kael uneasy on a very instinctive level. Snow wasn't like rain, which had the decency to leave after a while. Snow stayed and layered upon itself, each flake so small it seemed insignificant. But it made the air itself disorientating, made the ground featureless. No wonder people got lost, so easily.

Jaina had always told him that with the cold it wasn’t a matter of if it would kill you, it was a matter of how long it would take.

True for many things, that.

Snowflakes sat pale and untouched in Illidan’s hair and clumps of ice formed upon his wings. Kael’thas wordlessly reached out and set a warm hand upon them. Illidan twitched, but didn’t draw back and didn’t speak.

“I suggest we find shelter.”

He was quiet a long moment. Kael’thas could almost feel his desire to return to the Black Temple, his agitation at the thought of a demon running free.

“There’s a cave not far from here.”

Illidan’s other definitions of “not far” included Nagaland and occasionally Azeroth itself. Kael’thas sighed. Illidan glanced at him, expression unreadable.

“You do not trust me.”

“You do make it rather difficult.”

Illidan chuckled and Kael’thas knew a burst of frustration. Laughter was not the best way to respond to potential insubordination. Who had trained this man? By some accident of mountaineering they had ended up on the main path, such that it was. Steps hacked out of bare rock, rapidly vanishing beneath the snow. Illidan stopped to stare up the mountain once more, flexing his good wing. Kael’thas swiped a nearby boulder clean and let himself sit, just for a moment. His nose was cold. He would take a few minutes to warm up and then follow, and hope Illidan didn’t lead him entirely astray.

His hands didn’t even hurt anymore. They were too cold to feel. That was…worrying, in a distant fashion.

A few minutes of rest passed, became numbness. Time softened around him. He ought to get up and continue, least he be left behind. But he was so very weary.

"Brightprince?"

Just a few more minutes.

"Kael’thas?"

He became dimly aware of claws under his chin, tilting his face up. Illidan’s eyes, the remnants of them, were exactly the same colour as the markings on his skin. Mesmerizing, really. He opened his wings around them in a shield against the snow.

"Merely a little footsore. I'll be with you presently." He tried to sound hearty but the words came out faint. Talons combed with great care through the ends of his braid and came away clutching snow. Illidan felt warm. He leaned into it quite without realizing. Ah, wait. Illidan was saying something. Best respond lest he worry.

"I'm quite alright. Just a moment or two more."

Kael'thas stirred into alertness as Illidan lifted him carefully. Much as he often fantasized about been swept off his feet, wind chill and exhaustion usually didn’t factor into his daydreams. His head spun dangerously as Illidan tucked him against his chest and folded his wings around them in a leathery bubble.

“Put me down.” He used the tone that could make even Rommath pause in his tracks, if only briefly.

“Soon.” Illidan crouched and jumped an unnatural distance upwards, allowing an unpleasant burst of cold winds into their little bubble. Kael couldn’t quite stop himself from hissing in protest as he hopped up a series of steep steps, boosting himself with his wings as he went. The world around them had turned completely white and yet somehow dark alongside it. Kael’thas could see no more than Illidan could. Perhaps less. He squeezed his eyes closed against the stinging cold.

He was so very very tired.

“Kael’thas?”

This wasn’t going to get any better. What was he thinking? There were barely enough of them left to be considered a viable population. The maddening hunger for mana grew worse with every passing day. And he had taken this already disastrous situation and divided them further, dragged them here to this decaying corpse of a world and promised it could be a home. He had doomed them to a wretched and miserable decline, rather than a death with dignity. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a disaster if he died out here.

And as if by magic all at once the wind died around them, the roaring of the blizzard retreated. Was he dead? Ah, no, wait. Greenish images lurched around him- Illidan’s marking reflected in the icy walls of a cave. A cave!

The demon hunter zig-zagged through a narrow entrance tunnel and suddenly a proper space opened around them, tall enough that he didn’t have to stoop. Illidan still saw fit to keep a hold of him and sank into a crouch next to what looked like, upside down, a disused firepit.

What a sad sight to see. But he could help with that.

“Allow me.”

It took him three tries to get the fire going. The cold really had done a number on his mana reserves. Enough of his wits had returned for him to be afraid.

Illidan had seemingly decided that he was going to be helpful, the results of which were frustrating enough to distract him from his fear. He mantled his wings around the fire as it crackled upwards and prodded Kael into the space between himself and the flames, fussing and pulling at his cloak. Kael’thas grumbled, then remembered his tutors telling him this was undignified and settled for his haughtiest silence.

“Cease your tugging at my clothes. Please.”

“You’ll catch cold.” Confounded by the buckles of his cloak, Illidan instead assaulted the triple knot Rommath had laced into his boots and immediately got his talons caught. Kael had to take a breath to keep his manners. He finally succeeded in wresting it off only to be confronted by some very finely knit stockings. Kael’thas finally summoned up the energy to grab his wrist. He only had three pairs left and Illidan’s talons were a disaster waiting to happen.

“Pulling off my underthings in a cave? Folk will talk.”

Illidan felt his way along his arm and put a hand on his forehead. 

“You’re delirious.”

“I’m fine, just cold.” Freezing, in fact. He lifted his head and eyed the fire blearily. “Would you mind awfully if I took a moment to rest?”

“Do not go to sleep!” Illidan tugged off his hat and flicked one of his ears. It stung worse than an eversong wasp.

“I’m not going to, you great flapping menace, I…” words defied him. Irritated, he reached out and stuck his hand in the fire. The stinging burn of ice eased immediately, and he sighed with bliss. Illidan reluctantly let him squirm loose to settle himself into the fire proper. A childish habit that he had not indulged in some time, but if he was allowed comfort at any point it was after nearly freezing to death while a blizzard howled outside.

“It doesn’t hurt you.” Illidan’s voice caught oddly as he spoke.

“Of course not. Does fel hurt you?” Kael’thas opened his eyes to peer through the flames at him. Though the gushing blood had long since eased Illidan carried the cris-cross of deep scars on his chest and his wing still hung crooked. He had probably gotten blood on his cloak. Hopefully it would wash out.

The demon hunter shifted as if suddenly self-aware.

“By times.”

“Ah.” Unfortunate. “I’m sorry.”

Illidan fanned his wings to encourage the fire upwards and then reclined to stretch out on his side, curling around the flames and opening his good wing as if to absorb the warmth. They were beautiful, really, for all their strangeness. The skin was incredibly soft and almost the same colour as the sun seen through wine. This close to him, Kael’thas could see a faint shadow of emerald filigree, gentler versions of the brands upon his chest and back. The green markings seemed to move, a wave-like ebbing and brightening of their light.

“Do they hurt too?” He spoke without thinking.

“On occasion. It matters not.”

“Of course it matters. We could…the Sin’dorei healers are well familiar with magical ailments, and can work with fel when taking proper precautions. We could help, do something to ease it, surely…”

Illidan smiled in the manner of someone humouring a fool, and spoke very gently.

“Do not grieve. I would rather know pain than nothingness.” He stretched his hands and Kael’thas heard bone pop back into place. How grim an outlook. Maybe it seeped into the soul when one was marinated in nothing but pain and shadow and rage, when there was no company at night except memories and moonlight and the weight of inevitability. Maybe that did things to a person.

When his ancestors first landed in their new homeland it had been a place of ice and dire suffering, of winter and darkness. Fire for the Highbourne was salvation, was life itself. They had many legends of someone lost in the night, only to be led home by flame- by a firebird, by an immense bonfire lit by their families, by the smell of cooking food.

Folk of the other races thought fire a strange and inappropriate power for a prince. What could fire do except burn? What could fire do except destroy, sow chaos, bring pain and death?

They didn’t have the right context for the situation. All that darkness and all that light. Lighting fire after fire in the hope that a lost soul would find their way home. Setting out torches so that no one strayed off the path. Warming the water for a bath, the food for eating, easing the cold skin and aching bones. Their lives grew shorter, brighter, hotter. They bound themselves tight together where the Kaldorei were as solitary as the stars in the sky. They passed magic from parent to child to grandchild, mana bound into their blood and bone. They built it into the walls of their homes, into the stones of their streets, they baked it into their bread and infused it into the water. 

It was in no way strange that all that love and all that hope was re-manifest in him as flame, the very things that kept them alive. All that love and all that hope transcending time and flesh, connecting him intimately to his forebearers through the magical web that knew neither time nor space.

All Illidan had ever known for light was the distant glittering light of the stars, the cool silver moonlight surrounded by the infinite dark. Though the moon was beautiful, it was distant and unreachable. 

The sun, now. The sun was always shining somewhere. The sun was always warm, for all that it was always busy.

He closed his eyes and reached out.

“Take my hand.”

Illidan understood his meaning immediately, for he propped himself up on his elbow.

“I am not a firebird like you, Brightprince. It will burn me.”

“It won’t. Trust me.” And he laughed, realizing what he had said. “I suppose I do not make it easy, do I?”

Illidan's expression seemed to soften, if only for a moment.

“Ah, Kael’thas. You make it all very simple indeed.”

Kael’thas had often wondered if he’d played the harp, for there were a number of old calluses on the underside of his fingertips, very different from those generated by weapons. They were rough on his hand as Illidan took it, very carefully, as if handling something made of glass. Kael’thas felt his magic twitch instantly, reaching out to investigate Illidan’s and merge with it.

Illidan’s power in turn drew itself back like a haughty hawkstrider. But it was recognizable for all the chaotic and dangerous nature of such infernal magic. Fel and Fire sprang from similar places within the web of magic, and this didn’t seem akin to true fel as Kael’thas would know it. It lay quiescent under Illidan’s skin and seemed to yet hold some of the structural elements of arcane. And under that he felt something else, something ancient and barely used, that tasted like woodsmoke and moss.

So. An inherit talent towards druidism and its instinctive casting, turned towards arcane magic. And now merged with and replaced with fel, flowing like water into the structures left by arcane. No wonder Illidan took so easily to existence as a hybrid creature. He’d been a blended mage from the very start.

Illidan, for his part, seemed intrigued by the flames crawling up his arm like a cat wanting to be petted. Under Kael’thas’s skill they didn’t burn or maim, but warmed. Kael’thas felt him relax as the sensation drew his attention away from the pain, and hid a self-satisfied grin.

“You are very comfortable in your power.”

“Thank you.” He preened a little. “I had excellent tutors. Although I fear I frustrated them, given that I tended to justify my workings with the phrase It worked, didn’t it?”

“I had similar experiences amidst the Highbourne,” Illidan said after a long moment, as if admitting a great secret. He lifted his free hand and summoned felflame with a graceful curl of his wrist.

“Much of my magic was instinctive after spending so long in the forest. I could cast wards without circles- really,” he insisted at Kael’thas’s incredulous scoff. “It took years to fix words and runic frameworks to it.”

So much of that magical knowledge had been lost when the highbourne migrated, almost as much as the Sin'dorei had lost in the Scourging. It made him sorrowful to think of it- and yet, here before him sat a Highbourne. Mangled and formed into something fearful and wonderful but...a Highbourne. He’d seen murals with night elves wearing their hair just like Illidan did. He might remember ancient schools of magic now lost to them, Kael’thas thought suddenly. More than that, he would know of songs and stories that they used. Older versions perhaps, but if they had the original material could it not be made anew?

-he might know the way of painting with enamel, lost along with most of the artists guild in the Scourging. The growth of certain types of plants- of trees, of flowers that had been carried over by his ancestors. The progenitors of certain families and how they might be interlinked, how to make the famous and closely guarded Darkmoon wine-

-and poems long lost to them, and the identity of a hundred thousand authors known only as Anonymous-

-and oh! Were the Kaldorei not famous for their moonwork, for the use of stars and alignments and planets and the moon in their magics, an art lost with one of the highbourne ships that had gone down thousands of years ago-

“We had a poet called Kael’thalas, almost your name, many years ago.” Illidan was still studying the flame curling over his arms. “I seem to remember some scraps of his work. Would you care to hear them?”

He had been staring at a well all this time and thinking it a broken tower, barely worth the time spent propping it up.

“I would like that very much.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Illidan and Kael'thas enjoy a surprisingly pleasant conversation.

Illidan was absolutely enchanted, despite the severity of their situation. Kael'thas showed an ease in his magic that he had never seen in a mage. Completely fireproof, so attuned to his power the element did not harm him. What a marvel, what a wonder. 

Though his magic was a tad gregarious, bumping up against his like an overfriendly saber and trying to entangle itself around his wards. 

His hands were very soft for a mage, for a swordsman. He didn’t carry the classic mage scars around his fingertips and knuckles. Back when Illidan was learning how to funnel arcane mana it was accepted that the first few spells always went awry. No more, it seemed. Perhaps they’d had enough time and peace to study, to find ways to avoid those bleeding fingers and burning hair.To think Kael’thas had never once been told his magic would doom them all. That he'd had teachers and lessons rather than having to figure it all out from first principles. He wasn't looked at as a walking hazard by half his people, hadn’t had the room fall silent when he walked in.

To think he'd aided that, him and his bleeding eyes and his shaking hands, feeling blindly for glass vials. 

But wait, he had mentioned poetry. What a fool thing to say, for the brightprince surely had other concerns. But no, his ears perked up as if intrigued. 

And now Illidan abruptly found himself on the back hoof, barely able to remember the exact rhythm of words that had once moved him to tears. But Kael’thas seemed delighted. 

"How wonderful. Could I ask you to write it down once we return? I’m sure we know of a song very similar and it would be most interesting to see how it has changed over time." The prince had a very pleasant voice. Something in the accent made it sound like the thrill of a songbird. All the Sin’dorei spoke as though on the edge of bursting into song. He had started to think of it as a dawn chorus, their voices filling the temple as they woke up and went about their business for the day. 

Kael’thas was still holding his wrist. He didn’t mind, oddly enough, but perhaps it was best for them both to sleep while the blizzard raged outside. He withdrew, surprising himself with his reluctance, and busied himself with scratching a fresh nook into the floor. Kael’thas looked on as he directed felfire into the hollow so that it was warm to the touch. He settled into it on his side and wrapped his wings around himself, draping one over his head. It was nearly dark enough out here for him to think he could truly close his eyes. 

He could almost hear Kael’thas’s thoughts ticking over, and barely repressed a sigh when he spoke. 

“You, ah, sleep in your clothes?”

He did when he might have to vacate an area swiftly. Maiev had already taken ten thousand years of his life and a considerable chunk of hair off his head. He would be damned before she got his clothes as well. 

“So do you.” The Sin’dorei had a whole other wardrobe for it in fact, if the courtesans were anything to go by. The Highbourne had had large and varied wardrobes and their descendants seemed to have inherited the trait with some gusto.

“That’s different.” It most certainly was not. “This explains the creases. I thought it due to some advanced aerial technique.”

“Mock me all you like, but I noticed your mismatched socks.” That would have earned him a mage’s duel many years ago, and indeed Kael’thas was instantly outraged. 

“I most certainly have matching stockings!”

“They feel completely different.”

“That’s merely- that-” he took a breath and recovered himself, “there’s merely a different character to the fabric.”

That of all things made him chuckle.

“You would have made a great merchant.”

Kael’thas inclined his head, voice dropping to a purr. 

“Usually people taking my socks off are distracted enough that they don’t care for the texture.”

Ah. Well. 

Kael’thas remained sitting up, looking at him expectantly. He wanted something. Perhaps he was lonesome. The smaller elves tended to sleep in clusters and gathered themselves into large groups to raise makeshift tents around their hearthfires and sleep on mounds of silk pillows and smooth blankets. Even the so-called nobles amidst them took their rest in such a fashion, although they might claim a whole room for themselves. He had caused quite a stir the first time he’d wandered in on top of them. Sin’dorei didn’t have great night vision if all the screaming was anything to go by. He’d taken care to avoid their halls in his nightly patrols after that, though it pleased him to see the event had inspired them to set a nightwatchman. 

Illidan shifted and lifted his wing in silent invitation. Kael’thas scooted in beneath it immediately, still warm from the flame. He immediately put his ears back, for this was rather closer than he would like. No matter, for the brightprince was so small Illidan could cover him with a wing. He was content enough with that and settled back with sleep on his mind, but Kael’thas fidgeted. The movement brought them closer together. Silk, as it turned out, was wonderfully smooth. It didn’t even hurt the tender new skin on his chest. He lifted his wing carefully, readjusting the spurs to be further away from his face.

Was that a footstep? He lifted his head to stare out towards the blizzard. A futile endeavor. Even if Maiev was out there he likely wouldn’t see her. He flexed his hooves and shifted around so that his feet pointed towards the cave mouth. Any warden that came to aggravate him would receive a swift kick to the head. 

He was so alert to such danger that Kael’thas’s voice made him jump.

"Do you always sleep like this, with the fire?"

“Yes. I used to do so by magic, back in the forest. Mal was so sure I was going to start a forest fire.”

“Did you?”

“Not one I’ll admit to. Besides, a little bit of fire every now and again is a good thing.” 

Kael’thas shifted to make himself more comfortable. His hair tickled Illidan’s nose. 

"There's an old essay on instinctive casting that many fire mages find useful. Maybe you are familiar with it? It focuses less on classical arcane linkage and control and more on momentum."

"It sounds akin to fel theory." He shifted to pull one wing out from beneath himself. "There is or was a great focus on arcane as a toxin substance that has to be channeled carefully through the body."

"Yes, quite. That if something wants to flow through your spine rather than your arms, it's best to let it rather than try to redirect it into a more classical form."

"That seems sensible." The body usually knew what it was doing. 

Kael'thas sighed a little. 

"Are you familiar with the work at all?"

"I seem to recall parts of it."

"You wrote it, Illidan." Kael'thas’s voice was very gentle. 

He supposed it was possible. A number of memories had slipped out of his mind. He retained only the important ones. The scent of moon lilies, a meadow illuminated with fireflies. Tyrande’s laugh. Teaching himself how to slow dance in a little clearing near Felwood. Rose perfume, chocolate strawberries, Vashj’s wall-shaking snores. Everything else was demons and how best to slaughter them. Such an intensity of focus didn’t concern him. Did not sabers think often of deer and their weakness? Did not wolves muse over the hunting of wild goats? 

He was half-asleep when he smelled salt. The scent had him awake instantly, the tips of his wings unfurling and a slick of contact poison bubbling out of the spurs.

Kael’thas’s spine was a tense curl against him, his shoulders up and his ears drooping with grief. Oh. He'd heard Kael’thas weep in the Temple, when he thought no one would notice him in the dead of night. But Illidan was a mostly sleepless creature. He heard everything. He had ignored it. He had neither the skill nor the knowledge nor the heart in him anymore, to comfort a person in their sorrow. How could he? His suffering had eaten him whole. 

But wonder of wonders, he thought now perhaps that he could. And so he shifted and pressed his final remaining handkerchief into Kael's grasp. His magical aura immediately gleamed pink with embarrassment. 

"Did I wake you?"

"No."

“You are a terrible liar.” He sighed, too long and deeply for someone so small. “May I ask you something?”

“Of course.” Anything. Everything. 

“When does it stop? The feeling after someone…dies.” He used a strange word for it, archaic. Illidan was confused for a moment. To Kaldorei that meant something that is far away and longed for, not death. 

“It does not pass. But it...becomes manageable. It moves from a constant pressure to one that comes in waves."

Kael’thas sniffed delicately. 

“I dislike the sea.”

Having crash landed in the ocean on more than one occasion, Illidan was inclined to agree. 

“I ought thank you for that. Everyone else has lied to me.” His voice was heavy with weariness, half asleep again already. 

"In a better world you would have had time for sorrow. I regret I could not give it to you."

"You take too much upon yourself." Kael’thas squirmed around to put a hand on his chest. "You already carry so much. You can't weigh yourself down with more."

Illidan scoffed. 

"If you worry about weighing me down, then cease all your parties. I noticed my plate getting larger with each one.” Not that Illidan minded, overly. The Sin’dorei constantly fussed at one another to eat more, likely a habit born of recent tragedies. It was amusing indeed to find himself the target of such concern, as if they considered him to be some strange and distant cousin. Kael'thas sighed and he thought the brightprince about to retaliate. But no, instead he snored softly. Asleep. Finally. 

But he couldnt bring himself to be too irritated by such a talkative nature. Three times now, the brightprince had appeared to aid him in times of dire need. Broken him out of a warded cage, melted him out of the snow after that disastrous battle with Arthas, appearing out of the sun to chase off the wardens. Such a brave little creature, adept at every battlefield he found himself upon, and so clever-

He was far too old to react to someone like this, like a flower turning to face the sun. But ah, wasn’t the sun warm? He had every right to have grown tired of darkness, of the cold and distant moon. An ancient and weary part of him wondered what Tyrande was doing, hoped she was well. What a foolish thought that was. Of course she was well for she embodied all the most essential qualities of a person, strength and ferocity and serenity. Her devotion elevated her and left her prepared for every eventuality. Tyrande was going to be just fine. 

He was pleased to find his admiration for her had grown with him, matured into something new. Something that gave him strength, but left him free to take to the wind as he chose. 

All of it was irrelevant for now. 

He did not dream, and remembered only a long and lazy flight across the sand dunes of the desert, his back warmed by the sun.

…

Kael’thas's stomach growled so loud it woke both of them up. Illidan started, his claws cutting white marks into the cave floor. He covered his ears protectively. 

“Good morning. Can we avoid cutting off my hair, please?”

Illidan yawned wide enough to reveal an impressive double-row of sharp teeth. Well, that certainly wasn’t alarming considering how snug this little scoop was. Perhaps it was time to get up and- he squirmed marginally out of the wing tent, swore at the shock of cold air on his shoulders and immediately dived back for cover. 

“It’s too inhospitable to go anywhere.”

Illidan lifted his head to peer up at the ceiling. Or through it, probably. 

“The blizzard has stopped.”

Indeed, and had left snow absolutely everywhere if the nature of the light coming down the tunnel was to be believed. He allowed himself a moment of self-pity and then reached for his clothes. They had indeed dried overnight, if developed some unfortunate creases despite Illidan’s best efforts to spread them over the rocks. His cloak was as stiff as a sheet of plate metal when he lifted it, much to Illidan’s barely repressed mirth.

Fortunately, he’d long since developed a cantrip to warm his clothes before putting them on. Illidan looked on in apparent interest as Kael’thas wrapped himself up like an onion, almost purring with happiness. Oh, the delight such small comforts could bring.

“Elegantly done.” 

“Why, thank you. Shall I do your, ah, garment?” 

Illidan instantly looked suspicious, but he was plainly colder than he let on for he relented within a minute. Kael’thas attempted to be somewhat circumspect about the situation, but it was clear that undergarments weren’t part of a Kaldorei wardrobe. Illidan wrapped his wings around himself and curled back into the scoop, sharpening his talons against the floor. The leather trousers were surprisingly heavy, fur lined on the inside and remarkably soft. He sincerely hoped it wasn’t the same thing he’d worn in prison. No indeed, he thought suddenly, for this was talbuck hide. Illidan must have found a moment to make himself some clothes, using his old pair as a pattern. 

The thought of Illidan sitting alone and stitching was a sorrowful one. Didn’t he realize there were a dozen tailors and seamstresses who’d leap on the opportunity to dress him? Then, perhaps he preferred his solitude. His thoughts were interrupted by Illidan sweeping his wings forward to cover up the fire with sand.

“What about breakfast?” He couldn’t quite stop the horror from entering his voice, and it was clearly so pathetic that Illidan almost hesitated in bullying him outside. Almost. 

“We eat on the hoof. Or the boot, in your case.” 

Kael’thas sighed at him, but relented as Illidan offered him a slightly battered handkerchief of strawberries. 

“You are right, of course. Time is of the essence.” 

Illidan ushered him uphill as he ate. Kael’thas was so hungry he ate half their breakfast before realizing that the other elf hadn’t eaten anything at all. Illidan ignored him when he tried to press the rest onto him, suddenly very engaged in melting the snow ahead of them. He flexed his wings as he did so. And perhaps he was gaining some new sense of aesthetics for he could see a grace in how they unfurled like a pair of great fans. 

He really was fit together very nicely.

Silly as it was he wished he had brought a flask of tea to wash down the mana crystals. Even some loose leaves might have been enough, if wasted without the proper conditions in which to brew them. Apple, rose and mint. Or black with spices. Something to line the stomach. Ideally accompanied by olives, grapes, eggs, crispy meats, honey and sweetbreads. 

A rock had dug into his back as he slept, and he was quite sure it had bruised. After years of camp beds and sleeping rough he had grown very fond of his mattress indeed. 

A bath, he decided firmly. When he got back, he was going to exercise his royal rights and steal the Den baths for an evening, along with every candle he could possibly find. Remind himself what civilization felt like. Pout at Mei'le and lament over how worn his nails were until she agreed to share her nail polish again.

“We should have a gathering once we return, to ensure people know we are alive.”

“Will it not be obvious?” 

“Yes, but that never stops a gossip from spreading rumours. You simply must come. The chefs are determined to make something you like.” 

“Very well.” He rolled one wing in its socket, joint popping. “Would it be very busy, this social? I find myself weary of large crowds. I like to hear them but not be amongst them.” 

“Of course, very intimate, only fifty people.” At Illidan’s expression he amended himself. “Twenty people. Although Vashj counts as three because of all the chairs she takes up.”

“I will tell her you said this.”

“Do not!”

Illidan paused suddenly and spread one wing so as to halt him in his tracks.

“What is it?” Now that he looked up, something seemed off about the plateau in front of them. Very flat, for one, and featureless beneath the snow. Illidan stooped to pick up a stone and tossed it forwards. It bounced with a strange echo, as if on something immense and hollow, and skittered across the icy surface of the frozen lake with a series of eerie cracks. Now that Kael’thas was out of his own head he heard the ice shift and creak, grinding against itself. 

“No matter, we can cross this in no time at all.” His voice died as he turned. Illidan was stock still on the frozen shore, talons spread, wings tight against his back, gaze fixed down through the ice. 

“Illidan?”

“I see fel in the belly of the lake.”

It was, of course, at that moment that Maiev chose to come bursting out of the snowbank. Kael'thas could almost admire her timing.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rommath does diplomacy. So does Kael'thas.

Rommath didn’t get the chance to go challenge Akama over what, exactly, he’d said. Kargath stood and cried out what sounded like a ritual challenge. Rommath wasn’t quite sure of the correct response, but he found the nature of these things tended to hold true across all languages and instantly snapped back a classic Sin’dorei acceptance, to many delighted _ohhs_ and _ahhs_ from the surrounding crowd.  

Rommath was ready to start there and then- only nobles needed to wait until dawn to get their act together- but apparently the orcs had regulations about this kind of thing. Five of the elders immediately called out for a halt, bringing both him and Kargath to a rather abrupt stop. Wait, they could just challenge their leaders decisions openly like this and it brought everything to a standstill? How did they ever get anything done?

The issue of his obvious illness was raised, rapidly followed by whether or not an underling could accept a challenge on behalf of their prince. He bristled as one rather withered looking man waved a cane at him.

“Tis a mage. It’s not right to fight a skinny mage.”

“I am not skinny!”

The woman who had handed him a mug when he first entered the hall appeared at the old man’s elbow.

“The elves tend towards a slender frame when compared to ourselves. That might well be normal for him.”

This garnered him a number of sympathetic glances, and three elderly women near him put their heads together and started to speak rapidly to one another. Some interactions transcended all language barriers. He wasn’t getting out of here without a meal.

It was immediately decided that the circle needed to be an oval, so that Rommath had enough time to get his spells ready, and that he also needed a second and at least one assistant. No, he most certainly was _not_ going to drag any poor unfortunates into this nonsense!

“There’s no need for such theatrics. I’m a busy man. Let us end this.”

“It wouldn’t be fair. Name your second.”

Romamth flatly refused. And it was at this point that Akama decided to get involved.

“Why not that courtesan you spend so much time with?”

Rommath felt himself pale. Mei’le was quick with her little knife but she wasn’t a fighter, not the way the average orc was, and Xi’an was a scholar. Neither of them were fit for this kind of work. Let him send for Kayn if he had to. But he was gone, and though he knew the second in command of the guards her name quite slipped his mind- worrying in and of itself, for his memory was usually ironclad- and the courtesans were too brave for their own good, and the courier was sent to summon them before he could stop them.

So now he had to worry about that, too. Great. He already had precisely one white hair at the back of his head and he wanted no more.

Mei’le appeared in the most practical blouse she owned and couldn’t quite resist cracking a number of lewd jokes as she offered to help him grease up. Xi’an couldn’t quite keep the worry off his face, but was clever enough to hide his expression with a fan.

“He’s huge.”

“I’ve fought larger.”

They both shot him an odd look. Honestly. Folk tended to assume an affinity for the magical arts left someone physically inept. As if! In fact if a person was anything like himself, they immediately noticed such a weakness and took steps to render themselves adept in physical combat. A feature that had led to the assassin’s guild in Qual’thalas refusing to accept contracts on him. Rommath was bad for business, they said. Made them look incompetent.

“Please let me fetch one of the soldiers, or a duelist-”

“No.” He kept his response short. More rushing around would only weaken his position, and possibly his ability to actually fight this fool. Besides, he needed to concentrate on this potion.

The Sin’dorei at large tended to disregard potions. It had always struck him as strange, given how much they loved their cooking, their weaving, their brewing. A potion was all these things with extra arcane added in. Everyone ought to have excelled in potion craft, but no, and now they looked at him askance as he called for a vintner, for the tea set from the Den, for coffee and a number of dried herbs, and laid them all out with the four multicoloured flasks he brought with him wherever he went.

Halduron had called him paranoid for bringing these to Outland. Just as well he had nerves of glass. He fussed at Xi’an and Mei’le until they were opposite each other, one with the wine and one with the coffee. This had to be done just so or it all tended to go a little askew. Himself and Kael’thas had designed and perfected this potion themselves, in order to constantly function through nightly study sessions and ornate balls and magi exams that had made up their life for so long.

He set the four flasks around an empty carafe and stood. His magic grumbled. It was as weary as he was, and to think he would have no rest when he returned, only a million jobs needing personal attention and-

_Come on. Once more into the breach._

The courtesans poured together and he brought his hands up, lifting the potions out of the flasks and weaving all six streams into one with a quick motion. It was somewhat rewarding to have the crowd gasp and cheer at such a complex display, but the bulk of his attention was focused on the potion.

It was icy cold as he drank it, enough to make his stomach clench. He made himself relax, finishing it to the last drop. Not a pleasant draught. Not something he liked to rely on. But it was perfectly suitable for situations like this, or perhaps to bolster himself and Kael’thas through their final mage exams. All at once his lungs and muscles forgot he was yet recovering from an illness. So this was what it felt like to breathe easily once more!

He would of course suffer for this over the next few days. The last time he’d done this he’d ended up bedridden, never mind while still unwell. But such were the requirements of duty. All going well, Kael’thas would arrive back any minute now and stop this before it started. He had an instinctive sense of dramatic timing.  

He waited for the doors to burst open.

Nothing.

His ears went flat with annoyance. _Fine._

The orc’s had an insistence upon fighting shirtless and greased. This struck him as profoundly unsportsmanlike. Was it not a show of skill to get a grip on someone they couldn’t escape from?

He didn’t particularly like disrobing in public. But so be it.

The angular scarlet tattoos on his arms remained still, vivid and unyielding. But they were the ones he’d inked last, after he perfected the process. Those geometric patterns on his chest, his stomach, his back and his neck, they moved. Not with the fluid grace or sinuosity of living things but in a strange and fractal pattern, spinning and splitting in angles and lines, hexagons and whirling squares that swelled and merged to form shapes anew. He’d used his favorite sewing needle to etch them and thus enchanted himself quite without realizing.

An extremely intricate crosswork of triangles unfurled across his chest and stomach as he tucked his hair into a bun. They fit together as close as armour and nearly resembled the scales of a dragon.

Kargath’s second was the very same woman who’d pushed a drink on him as he came in, alerting him to the chalk circle. She glared at him from across the battlefield. Anyone else would have thought it a glare, at least. But he was a gaze, very intent and very focused. A spotlight rather than a glow.

Rommath suddenly felt himself in the presence of a fellow spirit.

_What is it? What are you trying to show me?_

She inclined her head, just slightly.

_Akama? What about him?_

He had no time to demand clarification, for the orc managing the fight slapped the ground to signal the start of the match. Rommath startled everyone by charging Kargath head on, ducking under his guard and punching him in the kidneys. The trick with a big fellow like this was to get in close, where they couldn’t use their long reach and greater strength to full advantage. Distantly, he heard Xi’an whoop.

Kargath’s back was covered in stitches. Poorly done ones at that- the healer mustn’t have liked him very much. Or perhaps he was the kind of fool who would barely give a healer time to do their job.

“So, the lapdog has teeth.”

Rommath resisted the urge to bite him in retaliation and skipped back out of range as the orc closed on him. He was damned fast for such a big man.

“Why did you try to lure Prince Kael’thas here for a duel?” A damned silly idea that was, in and of itself.

“He dishonours us with his behaviour.”

“What are you talking about!?”

Kargath took advantage of his good will by tripping him and Rommath suddenly found himself pinned.

Spending so much time around Kael’thas had caused his magic to shift, subtly, over the centuries. The princes magic was gregarious thing, mingling with the powers of nearby mages and altering them, if mildly. Kargath recoiled with a curse as he burst into crackling flames, jerking loose.

“I fear we are been set at each others throats, to weaken the Temple.” He squinted meaningfully at Akama.

“The shaman is more honourable than all of you combined! I’ve noticed how the orcs are abandoned but for war- we’ll not become the fodder of another demon!”

“There is no secret from which you are excluded!”

“No? Then where is the Highlord? Where is the Prince?”

Mei’le’s face slipped into his mind.

“They’ve eloped.”

Kargath blinked, but he didn’t laugh or instantly become suspicious. What in the name of the Sunwell were they doing, that this was a commonly held notion? Rommath pushed his advantage.

“Think, why would they vanish alone in the dead of night with no guard?”

Kargath frowned, face suddenly thoughtful, and then twisted so that half his stitches burst loose. Rommath winced even as the referee called a halt.

“Go, take water,” Kargath said, voice meaningful. For Akama was slipping away down a side passage at a remarkably quick pace for an old man with a limp. Despite his growing suspicion Rommath couldn’t help but admire the cloak. It was very finely made, indeed, and…

He frowned. The…wool didn’t just unravel when cut like that. It frayed as well, turning into a fluffy mass.

While illusions weren’t his favourite thing to dabble in, Rommath had made it his business to be competent in the eight major schools of magic, as well as having a strong understanding of the magics utilized by sorcerers, druids, shamans.

This felt wrong.

That wasn’t Akama.

…

“FOOL! YOU’VE FLOWN INTO MY TRAP!”

Illidan, already in mid-air so as to avoid Maiev’s attack, started as the demonic voice boomed through his head. A burning purple shape hurling itself out of the lake at him and he recognized the Nathrezim immediately, having killed this one once already. Xas’icus was a brute and an assassin, somewhat heftier than him and infinitely more awkward in the air on account of his short wings. What was that wretched creature doing here-

Ah. Demonic politics. The council of incubus was low-ranking in the Legions army, usually the servants and footsoldiers to the shivarra and the succubi. Ma’niqu had been sent after him in an effort to boost their reputation. But clearly the Nathrezim wanted the honour of killing him for themselves, and had stationed an operative here to snatch the prize away. All the information he had about the demon flicked to the forefront of his mind in a matter of seconds and he forgot Maiev, forgot about everything as he turned to face the attack.

“YOU WILL DIE HERE, ALONE-”

Kael’thas knocked the demon out of mid-air with a spectacularly explosive fireball, cackling as it went skidding over the ice. Maiev turned her furious gaze on the demon, then to him, then to Kael’thas, briefly torn in her choice of targets.

“Get in line, demon! His head is mine!”

“What fool are you to come between the Legion and their prey?!” Xas straightened out of the snow and snarled as a dozen arrows rebounded off his armour and sank deep into the joints of his wings. Illidan knew a surge of glee. Let them have at each other and he would very graciously bow out, snatch Kael’thas away from this nonsense and dash through the temple towards home. But sadly it wasn’t to be. The skin of his arms prickled in warning of portal magic and he flicked himself away as Xas tried to cut him in half.

Imbecile. That hadn’t worked the last three times he had tried it.

And Illidan, much to his frustration, still hadn’t figured out precisely how he did it. But now an opportunity presented itself. For when he fed on demons it sated more than his hunger for magic- he devoured fragments of their memories, of their spells. And Xas was very adept with his portal work.

He dived upon Xas as the demon left the ground, harrying him over the ice, and behind him metal sang as Kael’thas unsheathed his sword and turned to face the wardens.

…

“Ladies, please! There’s plenty of me to go around!”

The wardens plainly didn’t appreciate his attempts at politeness for he almost immediately lost an eye. He hurled a fireball at the offending warrior, then threw himself flat and rolled up as metal hissed through the air behind him. These Kaldorei threw the circular glaives one handed as if they weighed nothing, bouncing them off the heavy armour of their mounts so that they ricocheted in from unexpected angles. The women themselves attacked him head on with short blades so that he was in a virtual vortex of weaponry, testing his wards and armour for weak points. A distant part of him now understood why Illidan had so many scars.

A trio of throwing knives bounced off his wards, striking sparks. One of the wardens let loose a ringing cry and bulled through his ward on saberback. So determined was she that she managed to knock him across the head before his magic threw her back. The spell after that was almost instinctive, flash heating the upper layer of ice so that it burst into steam around them. The scalding cloud was harmless to him, and it gave him a moment to breathe as the wardens twitched back.

Illidan was brawling with the demon in mid-air, beating it around the head with his wings. The dreadlord tried to shout some spell at him only for Illidan to immediately kick it in the midriff, winding it and bullying him back further. Illidan was much more adept in the air to Kael’thas eye, his wings rotating in their sockets to pull him just out of range before diving back into the fray. One ear tilted towards him and he half turned, hovering.

Idiot. He wouldn’t be able to disengage without leaving his back completely open to attack.

“I’m fine! Kill it!”

And then he had no more time for the largest warden shook herself and leaped through the steam to chase him. He gave her his most dazzling smile as he moved back, step by step, steady and sweet as a dance. Five. He counted only five of them and their mounts prowling along in the edges of his vision. Where was Maiev-

Something smacked into his side. He looked down in confusion. A feathered shaft jutted out of his ribs, gleaming with anti-magic runes. His armour had slowed it, but not enough to-

Ah. There was the pain.

He blinked away from them, thirty feet to the left. Maiev observed him as he tried to force himself upright and stumbled. Content that he wasn’t going to escape her, she turned back to study Illidan. The other wardens eyed him briefly and came to a swift decision amongst themselves, for two of them drew long, incredibly sharp knives from their belts and moved towards him, one circling left and one circling right, before their outlines blurred and vanished into the snow. Ah, yes, all the night elves could do that. Unfortunate.

Plainly they thought to kill him and let Illidan and the demon maul one another, before sweeping in to finish them off. And to think folk had the nerve to call the Sin’dorei arrogant.

Gritting his teeth, he wrenched the arrow out and burned the wound closed in one swift motion. For a minute the agony rendered him nearly blind. That was a lot of blood. And that piece of flesh there rather seemed like it should be inside him. Perhaps this wasn’t his best plan.

Illidan seemed to have gained the upper hand. Having driven the dreadlord through the air above the lake he now harried the demon against the mountainside, pinning him against the temple steps. His wings were spread wide and his tattoos blazed as streamers of green mana flowed from the demon into him.

He was eating it.

Ah. No wonder he hadn’t wanted breakfast, part of him thought distantly. He’d probably eaten enough of Ma’niqu to keep himself going for a few days.

Now that he was distracted, Maiev whistled to her sisters and they all took off across the ice. A nasty trio of daggers gleamed between her fingers. He gathered himself, blinked forwards and bashed into Maiev’s shoulder as she threw her weapons, sending them skittering over the ice.

“May I have this dance?”

She punched him in the head and only his wards protected him from a cracked skull.

“Get out of my way and I may allow you to leave.”

The hell she would.

“Illidan comes with me.”

“You realize that isn’t Illidan, do you not?”

“If that’s the case you really ought to go figure out where he really is.”

“I would rather he didn’t claim another victim, even a Highbourne as wretched as yourself.” Maiev swayed slightly on her feet, testing his reactions. Her sisters circled past, ignoring them, racing to attack Illidan while he was distracted.

_“Illidan? You have houseguests.”_ Aloud he said;

“The term you’re looking for is _Sin’dorei_ , there’s an emphasis on the S.” He barely deflected the boot dagger she tossed towards his eyes and had to lock Felo’melorn into the grooves of her vambraces to prevent her scalping him. Maiev leaned into him, unbelievably and inevitably strong.

“He’s corrupted, just the same as everyone that touches fel and thinks they can master it.” She spoke with an absolute certainty and Kael’thas felt himself quail a little. He had suspected as much, deep down. Fel magic was famed for its corruptive qualities, and elves well known to be particularly weak to its lure. And Illidan had been alone with that and nothing else for endless ages.

“If you’ll forgive me saying so, ma’am, you may not be the most reliable source of information.” But it was important to present a united front. He radiated enough heat to melt the outer layers of Maiev’s armour and it trickled down his sword, dripped onto his hands, into his hair. He was briefly glad for his magic, protecting him from burns.

Maiev had no such power and she didn’t seem to care a whit.

“You think he’d want to be a vector for such a thing? It’s a mercy to kill him. More than he deserves.”

Demonic energies were well known to drive the bearer to madness. Illidan might well believe he was battling the Legion, rather than spreading it’s contagion to many other worlds. That would explain why he had yielded to Kil’jaden so easily, how the demon overlord had found them in the first place. Why he allowed demons into the Temple.

And yet. He hesitated in teaching the Sin’dorei how to feed on fel, concerned they wouldn’t be able to control it. That seemed somewhat counterproductive, did it not? And Kael’thas had touched the magic and minds of creatures corrupted by fel. All of them lived in a state of chaos, a churn of energies. Not the sensations he’d felt from Illidan last night, an orderly if idiosyncratic library.

“He tells you he can control it, promised that there’s a cure for your hunger? Lies. It ate him up from the inside just the same as his mother, the same as you will be in time. You are lost.”

Lost? Did she think he would be here if he had any other choice?

He had always had something of a temper, but largely controlled it. A fire mage with a hot temper was too much of a cliché for him to play into. But all at once it came bursting out.

“You don’t remember, do you? I wrote you letters pleading with you to take and train some of the women, so that they’d have food and shelter.” Rage flared through him. “Illidan brought aid and rescue where you and your precious Kaldorei would have let us hang, where the humans let us starve. We needed refuge and in the grimmest hour of our existence _everyone_ turned away.”

And he still couldn’t understand it. What had they ever done that was so wrong that the whole world abandoned them? No sympathy for them, no compassion, nothing.

It was the oldest damn trick in the book, yet he fell for it. Maiev suddenly stopped pushing him back and he lurched forwards towards her. She grabbed his ears and spun him to slam into the ice, pressing a knee into his chest. It splintered beneath him. Icy water soaked into his hair, slipped around his throat as she shoved his head underwater. He slammed the pommel into her helm to no avail, and she tilted her head so as to catch it against her shoulder so he couldn’t strike her again. Her hand tightened around his gorget as he boiled the water around them, trying to clear it away from his face.

And then suddenly the pressure was gone and he was falling, through a portal, to land completely winded on the ground. Illidan’s voice echoed in his mind as he rolled to avoid a deluge of lake water.

“Kael’thas!” And he recoiled at the sound, half-deafened. Illidan rattled off a stream of incomprehensible demonic. Since when could he make portals!? That would have made this whole thing so much easier!

He lurched upright, coughing, in time to see the portal snap closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed this work you can find me at https://happyorogeny.tumblr.com/


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything comes together.

Kael’thas hauled himself out of the dust, coughing. Was there no end to the indignities today would visit upon him? And where on earth had Illidan tossed him? He squinted and blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, yet still he saw nothing. 

He wasn’t- he wasn’t blind, was he? 

He touched one of his hairclips, a small garnet encrusted pin left to him by his mother, and the latent light spell bloomed outwards.

No wonder he couldn’t see a thing. There was no light whatsoever down here. And ‘here’ appeared to be some kind of attic with immense barrels stacked up to the ceilings and dozens of smaller ones in rows all around him, coated with spiderwebs. He had to assume they were spiderwebs. Though given that this was Outland it was probably something much worse. Grooves ran all along the floor of the room, in between rows of huge barrels, vanishing into grates in the flagstones and holes in the wall. 

And in the opposite corner of the room a dranaei stared at him, her blue hair incogurous in the drab surroundings. She hefted an immense crystal hammer over her shoulder as if considering an attack. He immediately drew himself up, even as part of him wondered. Whatever was she doing here? The place was clearly abandoned. Another wayward traveler taking shelter from the storm? A treasure hunter? An overly devout priestess? Though the dranaei usually had male priests from what he had seen-

No, None of those, for she wore rope around her waist in the fashion of the wardens, and she carried at her belt the very same long pale knives he had been threatened with. So, Maiev had found herself some local guides. Sensible. 

She was too clever to try and fight him, running into the darkened hallways the minute he lifted a hand. He started to hurl flames after her and then paused. Whatever was that smell? 

Right. Well, Illidan clearly had taken some notion and decided it was a plan. So there had to be something here of use. 

That wooden barrel, smashed to pieces by the dranaei. The slick floor shimmering in his arcane light. It wasn’t as dark as wine ought to be. He could smell no alcohol, but something bland and cloying. Not unlike some of his least favorite courtiers. Not alcohol indeed, but oil. Barrels and barrels of it. The dranaei had already smashed a number of them and oil poured neatly through the mosaic tiles and into the drainpipes, vanishing into a network of pipes in each corner. 

He thought of the Black Temple and the smoke stains on the walls that refused to come out. He thought of Akama and his ceremonial oil fires in the farthest wing of the temple, how they filled the temple with smoke and left dark smudges all along the walls and ceilings. And now all the grooves in the walls and floor made sense. 

Illidan hadn’t just meant to escape through this place. He had meant to lure Maiev underground, where she felt herself at an advantage to him, and collapse it atop her. And Maiev, been more cunning than the lot of them, had had exactly the same idea and sent someone in to get the drop on them. 

Really, Kael'thas thought, that was a little derivative.

He had a much better plan.

…

Illidan was almost at peace. No distraction of wardens, no blizzards, no wasting of his time and energy. Just a demon and its power and its knowledge. The world around him became sharp and clear, and narrowed down to a single point of focus. For he could always see a demon, and see through them and into their souls and into their thoughts.

He saw himself dead in the snow, and Kael’thas snatched away to become an arcane slave. He saw the fortress flattened into Shadowmoon valley and overgrown so that none might know of him or his plans. He saw his soul trapped in a crystal and strung onto barbed wire to make a pitlords necklace, saw Vashj plucked scale by scale for the amusement of the shivarra. He saw all his work come to ruin, all his labour come to naught. 

Kael’thas was fighting Maiev. Brave. Foolish. She probably already knew how best to taunt him so that his guard lapsed-

“You ought not have failed Kil’jaden, mongrel.” 

As if this stubby-horned thug took orders directly from the demonlord. Illidan laughed and spread his wings wide, showing the demon all the stars of Outlands sky and all the planets of the Legion therein, showing it the shrieking mass of every demon he had ever devoured, the blazing constellation of every living soul within his fortress. 

“You think yourself prepared to face me?” 

For the Legion had never known anything quite like him. They knew armies, sluggish and slow. They knew mages overwhelmed by their relentless assault, they knew desperate rebels and underfed freedom fighters, they knew kings and queens driven to despair and distraction and willing to make a deal with them to avoid further chaos.

He was something very different and very new, a being that knew them better than they knew themselves, who devoured their dreams and their magic and their souls with an endless hunger, who couldn’t be evaded and who couldn’t be kept out. The humans told tales of creatures that preyed upon them, a vampire. Where he had the time for whimsy he rather fancied himself the same thing to the Legion. Xas teleported himself above him and dropped like a stone, trying to break his neck by impact alone. How original. He rolled sidelong and swung into the demon as he fell, pushing him further down towards the mountainside. 

“Your warlord wants you dead, to send you here without allies.”

“I am one of many,” Xas hissed, slashing at the tip of his wing only for Illidan to pull neatly away and kick him in the hand, breaking his fingers. “We are Legion and you are alone-” 

But ah, of course he wasn’t. Xas’s whole left flank was still charred from Kael’thas’s attack. Illidan feinted right and then dug his wing spurs into burned flesh. And Xas was no powerful demon to withstand him. He thought of a portal to safety and Illidan snatched the spell from his mind like a magpie, absorbing it into his magics of warping and twisting and teleportation, and suddenly it felt complete in a way that it hadn’t before. 

He cracked space underneath Kael’thas, lifting his voice to jeer at Maiev as he snatched her prey out of her grasp. But he could move him no further than a minute’s flight, only up to the dranaei temple in the mountain. 

Well. Out of harms way nonetheless. 

Xas took advantage of his seeming distraction to try and crush him against the mountainside. All the Nathrezim resulted to brute force when they realized he was cleverer than they, for he was slighter in chest and wing and seemed easy to crush. He twisted with the attack to flip Xas into the scree slope, caving its chest in. He stole a memory of a new planet from the demons mind as it trashed against him, clawing at his face, tearing his throat open. He felt nothing and it barely had time to bleed before his magic sealed it right back up. 

“Imbecile! Know you die at the hand of Illidan Stormrage!” For they all had come to fear him as much as they hated him. Illidan knew neither temptation nor despair and could chase them no matter where they went, could see them no matter what disguise they donned.

“Leech! Traitor!”

“Yes, continue to insult the creature with his claws on your throat.” And he couldn’t deny that it was no small source of satisfaction, to have fresh fel pour through him, still hot, bringing with it knowledge and understanding. For the Nathrezim were a powerful magical race, and ancient enough to make him and all his knowledge seem young-

Xas spat a spell that reeked of ozone. The ground went out from under him suddenly, stone turning to sand turning to dust. He was briefly and entirely disorientated, his wings opening automatically in response to a fall, clipping stone. He could see no magic, no edges to the world, nothing-

They landed in a circular antechamber within the temple, briefly knocking the air out of him. Rocks crumbled across his wings and battered his back, trapped his foot so that he couldn’t lunge after Xas as the demon ripped itself free of him. It staggered briefly on a fractured leg, then grinned as it realized it was out of range and straightened up. 

“Alone at last.”

Illidan scooped up a good hefty rock and hurled it at the demon’s head. Xas ducked away with a curse and he braced himself, digging his talons into the tiles and wrenching himself loose with a snap. He didn’t need to walk, not when he could fly to close the distance between them. The pain was distant, under the exhilaration. 

“Did you kill the incubus and leave yourself devoid of allies?”

No indeed, for much as he tried to hide it Xas remembered Ma’niqu fleeing down the mountain below him. Towards the Black Temple. Blast! He eased his nerves by closing his claws around Xas’s throat. Darkness flickered in the demons mind. It knew its demise drew near. 

“My death means nothing!”

“It means I come closer to your world,” he hissed, and held tight till he saw nothing in Xas but his own reflection. 

Bliss. 

It couldn’t last. He drained Xas into nothingness and let himself settle to the floor, head spinning with blood loss. No matter. That would heal itself right up and he would be well to go in just a few moments-

“Well now, isn’t the homely.” 

A minute. All he had wanted was a minute. 

He lifted his head, trying to ascertain exactly where Maiev’s voice was coming from. This vast space made her words echo strangely, bouncing back off curved walls so that he surrounded by it. For a moment he was almost sure he could feel an iron collar around his neck, turning his blood to rainwater and his spells to sand on the tongue. A strange scent clouded his head, smoky and opulent.

“Looks like there’s a nice little pantry off there, just the right size for you. You did so love to pace.”

She hadn’t attacked yet. Why? Ah, she must have outstripped her sisters in her desire to catch him. She had always been the fastest. None of her underlings could match her. He lifted his head and knew a familiarity to this beyond naming. 

“No walls can withstand me. Not stone, not blood, not bone. You ought to know that by now.” 

Maiev appeared in the entrance to the hallway, nothing but darkness and eyes. 

“You speak that now as if it is truth, yet I held you for long enough.”

The dranaei had chosen this place well, for it was tucked just so into the mountainside and largely protected from the wind. But this one was dangerous now that Maiev knew where it was. She would settle in here and it would become her new vault, close enough that she would be able to see the Black Temple on a clear day, be able to spy on the comings and goings of merchants and troops.

He would not have it. He stood, his ankle fusing back into one piece. 

“You waste our lives with your hunting.” 

“What else would you have me do?” And her voice was strange in the question, as if she genuinely wondered. 

“Go home. That we never see nor speak nor think of each other again, so long as we both may live.” What peace that would be. To let the memories fade until time and distance made them meaningless.  
What on earth was that smell? So strong he nearly wanted to sneeze.

“You killed my sisters. You kill innocents, you kill your own fighters. You rampage across worlds and enslave whomsoever you please. You talk of defeating the Legion yet you spread its poison everywhere you walk. No, damn you, I will not go home.”

“This will bring you no peace.” 

“I know.” She spun her glaive, eyes burning, and he heard the footsteps of the other wardens beyond her. 

So be it. 

Of all things, he hadn’t expected to hear the ringing of a crystal glass, gently tapped. 

"I do hope I'm not interrupting." 

For a moment Illidan thought himself to be hallucinating. And then he smelled roses and couldn’t quite stop himself from rumbling in pleasure. Kael appeared in the hallway beyond them like a vision from Elune herself, shrouded in a cloak of flames. The floor burned around his feet and the fire crawling with him as he walked towards them. Yet Illidan felt no enchantments from him, no active spells- he had found the temple oil. Clever. And a fine crystal flute at that, full of ancient temple wine. Illidan would have laughed had he the air for it. It wasn’t good enough just to show up, no, he had to show off as well. 

"Ma'am if you don't leave I shall burn this entire building and everyone in it." He sounded as if Maiev was an uninvited guest, tramping mud all over the good carpet. 

“Including him?” Maiev inclined her head. Illidan could almost hear her calculating the odds of killing them both. He looked past her into the conspicuous silence of the hallways and showed his teeth to the shadows. The other wardens crouched there, just waiting on a chance to strike. 

"Yes. Lord Illidan tragically perished in the fire you started. I'll just have to take over.” 

All of the strange new life blooming in him wilted even as the whole room burst into a crackling blaze. Flames crawled up his legs, over his wings… and yet he felt nothing. Merely warmth. He took a few steps away from where Maiev had been, for cautions sake. A small hand closed on his elbow. 

“Come on!”

…

Maiev gathered herself and leaped through the flames, slashing through empty air. Blast! Where was he? She whirled, half blinded by the firelight. It clawed at her like a living thing, burning her ponytail to ashes and her cloak to cinders. She pitched her voice to carry over the roaring flames. 

“Clarrisa! Kir’ra! Al’iah! Report!”

She heard nothing, but Illidan laughed at her somewhere in the flames. 

Bastard!

She turned towards the sound but saw nothing. The coward had fled from her. No matter, for the smoke hadn’t yet seeped into her armour. She took a deep breath and took off into the flames, drawing her belt knife and reaching out her free hand to find the wall, guiding herself along. They couldn’t have gone far, not when she’d hurt the smaller one so badly. He might have burned the wound closed but that would merely have bought him minutes. Mages couldn’t heal themselves, not the way Illidan did, and she’d seen the weakness in his left side even as he tried to stare her down. 

Had the bastard come across Pia? Maiev had sent her on ahead to flood the place with oil, for a dranaei would know the layout of the temple better than her girls. 

A dll grinding sound warned her and she threw herself away from the wall as it crumbled inwards, collapsing into an immense cavern of flames. What unholy power did that wretch wield? The mages seemed to have grown stronger with time, indeed. 

It was a matter of time until the hallways crumbled. She started to inhale and found herself coughing. The seals on her armour were beginning to fail. 

But she was so close. So close to finishing this. She just had to catch up to them. They were weak and she had vengeance to drive her. She could defeat them both and leave this world safe-

“Maiev! Lady Maiev!”

Al’iah, somewhere behind her in the smoke. Maiev hissed in annoyance.

So close. She was so damnably tired of this. He couldn’t be gone that far. She just had to catch up to him, and then she could put it all down and rest. 

“Maiev!” That was Ki’ra. Were they foolish enough to come after her rather than escaping the flames? She came to a halt. Idiots! If her armour was failing her then theirs was surely filling with smoke. She filled her lungs so as to shout at them to go back, and doubled over coughing. And it gave her time to think. 

She couldn’t let herself die down here, not while Illidan would likely live and escape. Al’iah wasn’t ready to take over from her yet, and her girls would have no one to tend to their suffering hearts if she departed this world. 

I’m sorry, Naisha, she thought. It will be a little while yet. 

The most important thing any warden could learn was when to relent upon a chase. Not to give up- a warden never gave up. But to know when to cut their losses and save their strength. 

There would be other chances, for he was a fool and she was patient. 

She turned back. 

“Wardens! Report!”

“Here!” 

A shadow loomed before her. Swift leaped the flames just as Maiev had taught her, her muzzle and paws wrapped with wet rags. Pia crouched low on Swift’s back and grabbed at her hand so as to haul her up onto the saber. 

“The others?”

“Gone. I knew you wouldn’t leave unless they went first.”

Maiev smiled faintly under her helm. 

Tomorrow was another day, after all.

…

Illidan teleported them out of harms way as the ceiling collapsed inwards. They ended up in a crumpled heap at the top of the hallway, Felo’melorn poking into his back and the fire roaring happily towards them. Maiev shrieked somewhere in the flames. Not pain. Anger. 

Muttering, he twisted the distance aspect of the spell and dropped them into the entrance hall on the far edge of the temple. Cold air rushed across his shoulders and his heart leaped as he saw the Black Fortress blazing like the mid-day sun. 

Almost home. 

“Oh, now you’re just showing off,” Kael’thas hissed as he sat up and straightened his robes. Perhaps he was, a little. But he couldn’t quite resist it. There was nothing as satisfying as casting a new spell from beginning to end, in feeling a new understanding of the world. Particularly when he had managed to wrestle the location of another Legion planet from Xas’s mind. Not a portal homeworld, but another step closer. 

Now all he had to do was go and end Ma’niqu. The whole mission had gone flawlessly, really, aside from a few minor detours-

Blood. 

“You are wounded?” He picked himself up as the flames crackled into life at the end of the hallway, and roared up the gutters that bracketed the floor. Not exactly what he had anticipated- he had hoped Kael’thas would be able to fetch his soldiers- but effective nonetheless. 

“I’m quite alright, thank you for asking.” But he staggered as he stood, and almost put a hand to his side. Illidan squinted at him and saw a darkness in his body, blood pooling where it ought not, jagged tears that he knew all too well. 

“Surely you know better than to pull arrows out?” Maiev barbed her arrows so that they were wicked as fishhooks, ripping flesh and tearing muscle with every movement. Kael’thas laughed faintly. 

“And where is the nearest healer, pray?”

A fair point. 

Illidan could feel the blisters on his arms and legs cooling and sealing themselves up with fresh skin. He knew the Sin’dorei were already teaching themselves to feed on mana in the world around them, to feed on creatures and people much as he could. But fel was a different thing altogether. Fel would devour the host with ease unless they were cautious with it. And it was so very hard to be careful when the soul was desperate, when the body was hungry. 

He hesitated, though he had never hesitated over anything in his life. 

_Trust him. He’s trying to make it easy._

“Let me show you something.”

“Really, you pick now of all times?”

Illidan frowned at him and wondered why it felt like they were having two different conversations. But Kael’thas seemed to realize what he was about as he unfolded the pattern of his healing. He hadn’t interwoven his magic with someone else in a long time. Not since he’d killed half his moonguard allies in the defense of Blackrook hold. 

Fortunately Kael’thas was clever enough to get the gist of it almost immediately, just as he had with mind speak.

“Oh! That’s very simple isn’t it?”

Well, he wouldn’t call it very simple. It wasn’t as if anyone else had thought of it. But his indignation eased as Kael’thas delicately siphoned the barest hint of fel away from him and folded it around his organs, sealing them back together. Nowhere near his heart, just around the base of his lungs. That would surely do no harm. Illidan withdrew his magic carefully, reluctantly. Though it was pleasant indeed to feel so close to someone after so long, he wouldn’t risk inflicting a fel addition on another creature. 

There were other ways to feel close, after all. 

“That stings,” Kael’thas picked himself up and immediately frowned at the hole in his cloak. Illidan couldn’t help but chuckle at that. 

“Of course it stings, but not so much as dying.”

“I always thought death would be peaceful, no?”

“No.” Illidan was reasonably sure he had died twice. Once in the cell of starvation. Once in the dust of Outland at the claws of a clever demon. Both times he had gotten back up. But then, it could hardly be said to be dying when one picked oneself back up. 

Kael’thas sounded as if he might say something for a long moment, but finally sighed as softly as wind through the trees and offered him an arm. Illidan inspected the cloak dutifully. 

“The stitching is lovely,” he offered, mightily pleased with himself for figuring out a socially appropriate response so quickly. Perhaps he ought to host a meal of his own, and inflict Kaldorei cooking upon the masses. Kael’thas sighed and hooked their arms together. 

“Let’s put on a show, shall we?”

The icy wind was welcome on his shoulders, but not as welcome as the sight of fifty Sin’dorei soldiers halfway down the mountain. They had taken shelter from the blizzard beneath a copse of trees, tying the branches together so as to protect themselves and their mounts. Kael’thas insisted on them teleporting nearby and walking into camp so as to maintain his dignity. He marched right into the healers tent and immediately lay down. 

Next to a night elf woman. Illidan drew himself up immediately for that was surely a warden trying to infiltrate them so as to attack-

But no. That woman was so skinny as to be skin and bone, her feet bloody from walking barefoot. She bore the marks of demon claws on her chest. An escaped prisoner? 

He inclined his head towards the Sin’dorei captain, Kayn, who seemed a useful kind of fellow if very prone to nervousness. 

“Who is that?”

He snapped to attention immediately. 

“A stranger we found on the mountainside, struggling towards the fortress.” He paused and took a breath. “She says that her name is Kor’vas, and that she wants to kill demons. Like you.”

 _No one wants to be like me._

But now he saw that she might not have a choice. For she had torn at her facial tattoos in a form of Kaldorei grieving older than the well of eternity. It took something beyond despair to make a woman do that. He looked at her and saw a life and family destroyed by a demon raid, saw sorrow, saw rage. Determination. 

Very well. He could work with that. 

But for now...he judged the distance to the distant temple and opened a gateway in the sky.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone settles back in to their usual routine. With a few minor improvements.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for coming to the end of this with me, it has been a journey. <3

Kael’thas returned to a half-naked, greased Rommath standing over Akama’s corpse.

“Get up! Whatever you are, I know you’re not dead!”

Illidan came to a halt behind him, peering over his head. Kael’thas controlled his first instinct, which was to scream in panic. Rommath didn’t look injured, which was the main thing. Akama on the other hand- Rommath looked up, spotted him, and immediately took on the expression of a cat caught stealing butter.

“The situation became a little hectic. Don’t worry, I have it under control.”

“Rom, I specifically asked you not to kill anyone while I was gone!”

“He’s not dead!” Rommath glared and then blanched. “You’re hurt!”

The healers had patched him up nicely, and Illidan’s borrowed restorative power was a potent thing indeed, but Maiev made her arrows to bring down monsters. Breathing too deeply sent agony bursting through his side as if he’d been shot anew. Rommath immediately crossed the room to fuss over him, weaving his cloak back together with an arcane stitch.

“Honestly, how did you even get within range?”

“Me? You wrestled an orc and you’ve been on the firetea!” This being their rather uncreative term for the drastic mixture of potions that had kept them awake through college and, later, through the worst aftermath of the Scourging. Rommath flattened his ears and then redirected his ire at Illidan as he stepped into the room. 

“I hope you are happy, having caused all this fuss. You should know better than to go off on your own!”

“Truly, I have learned my lesson.” Illidan stepped carefully past the embracing elves, brushing a wing over Kael’s back as he went. “Whereas you clearly haven’t, Ma’niqu.”

Sure enough the corpse shimmered like a reflection in water as Illidan reached into it and came back clutching an ice-blue demon. Rommath started and Kael’thas pulled him back in horror, and no small amount of confusion.

That tiny creature had caused all this trouble? The incubus was much smaller than his sisters, barely the size of an elf. He sported a bodytight mesh of golden netting, every link imbued with the most potent magic-draining runes Kael’thas had ever seen in his life. The demon instantly started to spit curses as Illidan hefted him aloft, kicking at him with barbed hooves.

“Betrayer!”

“Call me that again.”

Ma’niqu turned desperate eyes on the Sin’dorei.

“Friend elf, help me!”

And Kael’thas suddenly understood why Illidan had been reluctant to bring him for he even stepped forwards. Of course he was going to help the poor creature, who hadn’t a hope against such a gigantic brute. Rommath grabbed his arm with a curse and Illidan shook the demon so violently that its power over him snapped. He recoiled, his skin crawling as if some oily hand had grabbed him.

“Get out.” Illidan’s voice was tight. “It’s here for me.”

Ma’niqu laughed.

“I was never here for you,” he snapped, and his gaze slid to Kael’thas. Rommath immediately stepped in front of him and the demon scoffed. “Why you when we could have him?”

“I’ll have you know I’m still in mourning and not accepting any offers of marriage at the moment.” He couldn’t quite keep his voice from shaking.

“Are you sure? You could do with the companionship, and your people with the sustenance, and leave this traitors flank exposed-” Ma’niqu’s voice choked off as Illidan squeezed his windpipe shut.

“I did wonder at the sense of sending a seducer after me.”

“If you could be so kind as to take this creature out of my presence,” Kael’thas managed. Something in his voice must have told Illidan he needed to be alone, for the demon hunter said nothing more but simply opened a portal and dragged the demon through it.

Rommath frowned.

“That’s new, yes?”

Kael’thas allowed himself a moment of weakness, leaning into him.

“You’ll have to be leaving. You’re already late home.”

“I can be fifteen minutes late. Come on, help me find my boots.” A transparent excuse, but one he was glad for nevertheless for it gave them time to say a proper goodbye.

And then Rommath was gone and he stood alone in his chambers once more.

…

Rommath arrived home half a day late and with a pounding headache.

Kael had made him promise to go home and take a nap, maintaining them to be the highest form of indulgence. Rommath hated lying to him, but he warped back to his chambers to find a stack of reports nearly as high as he was. His many and varied secretaries had sorted them as best they could and no doubt delegated what they could amongst themselves. But there were so few of them now that no one quite knew where to send certain queries.

He sorted through them rapidly, found at least twenty that needed to go to Lor’themar and bundled himself off down through the palace. The regent had filled the corridors around his office with plants so that he had to weave between them, almost like a chicane. The russet lynx yowled in protest from atop a tower of boxes as he shoved the door open. It hung crooked on the hinges and Lor’themar refused to rehang it, maintaining that it gave him a moment to react to unexpected guests.

Though the night was late in this world, Lor’themar was awake and pouring over what looked like a provisionary report. Steam curled upwards from a chipped ceramic mug. He didn’t look up.

“Go back out and knock.”

Rommath resisted the urge to argue. The regent lord was perhaps the one creature he had met that was almost as stubborn as he was. The lynx braced her paws on the doorframe and peered down at him as he took a step back into the doorway.

“May I come in?”

“Of course!” Lor’themar’s demeanor changed instantly. He sat up and rummaged around for a second mug. He was wearing the red eyepatch today, and Rommath had to admit the colour suited him. “So, any gossip?”

Lor'themar looked worried when Rommath laughed so hard he had to sit down.

“To put it briefly there are some of the standard issues, but no imminent danger.” No more so than usual, anyway.

“I heard you got naked and wrestled an orc.”

So Halduron did have spies on the far side of the portal! Good to know.

“I’ve prepared a file for you.” He dropped the papers onto Lor’thermar’s desk and had to wince at the resounding thud. He schooled his expression well, but he saw the disappointment flicker through his face.

“Thank you. I’ll get started on it posthaste.”

Guilt settled uncomfortably in Rommath’s heart. He hovered, and cleared his throat.

“I can give you a brief verbal report?”

Lor’themar virtually lit up at that.

“That would be wonderful! You’ll have tea?”

“Do I get a choice?”

“No.”

…

Illidan celebrated his return home by returning to his eyre to sleep. His magic churned and roiled in his chest like the restless ocean, shifting around to make space for his new spells. He did not dream but he saw his map of the cosmos anew, saw new planets blink into life in the great darkness and saw the thin glimmering threads of portal magic that connected them so that there was no darkness at all, only light. And the demons hid the location of their homeworlds well. But all creatures wanted a path home, and he saw how the portals clustered and grew so dense as to overlap one another, and he peered into the shadow beyond. Somewhere in there, he thought. That was where they sheltered.

Soon he would be the one leading an invasion on their world, and he would leave them nothing, no barren rock on which to roost.

And for once he awoke slowly rather than to cries of alarm or a burst of adrenaline. He stretched until his joints popped and let his wings hang out of the vine hammock. He’d claimed the tallest tower in the fortress for himself and warped it to suit himself, twisted alien roots and unknown trees into his furniture and bedding. The scent of blossoms unfurling in the morning roused him as surely as the singing of the Sin’dorei.

Now he took the time to stretch out his wings and realign each joint, popping them back into place. His hair had grown back in the night, heavy and soft against his back. He combed his talons through until it was soft and smooth and didn’t smell of blood or dust at all. He made sure his ribs had healed straight and picked out every little stone that had worked its way into his hooves.

All around him all the while were voices, the low grumbling of the orcs, the squabbles and delight of the Sin’dorei, the sleepy murmurs of the naga down in the bowels of the fortress. The humming of bees and whispering of leaves. All around him was light.

Kael’thas was off taking care of all the little trials of leadership. But they would wind up in one another’s orbit once more, Illidan thought. They were too similar not to be drawn to one another.

That, and the brightprince seemed to want something more from him. He had thought it a general curiosity at first, but he recognized it now from its persistence and its kindness. He knew such a feeling quite well, after all. All creatures great and small naturally sought out their equal and there were none amidst the Sin’dorei to match Kael’thas. Of course he looked elsewhere.

And as for him, well. There was nothing at all in the world like him. He had been alone for some long time. A little more waiting wouldn’t hurt him in the slightest.

…

This champagne was poisoned. A pity, for it was a rather rare vintage. Kael’thas drank and was glad he had lined his stomach with enough arcane charcoal to endure the effects.

Ma’niqu had been right about one thing. He did find himself lonely for companionship.

Illidan had vanished again almost immediately. No one knew what he was about. But Kael’thas could feel fel shifting and surging in the high towers of the temple, where the air was so thin most folk could hardly breathe, spires Illidan had claimed as his own.

_You said you’d come._ Much as such plaintive thoughts made him feel like a jilted lover, he had genuinely been relying on Illidan’s presence to scare the various members of the fortress back into line. He felt half the nobles testing his strength of character and wrested each of them back in their place, but it was trickier than usual. He could feel the heads of Dawnrose and Evestar exchanging glances they thought he didn’t see. He thought of what Illidan had said so casually about his aunt, and knew that Dawnrose might well have a claim on the throne. He sipped champagne and considered having them poisoned.

Nothing lethal. Just something nasty enough to let them know he wouldn’t tolerate that.

Akama had appeared, an unexpected and uninvited guest. He was remarkably quiet, perhaps hoping that no one wondered how such a powerful shaman had been so easily overcome by one demon, but he murmured general discontentment to some of the naga generals, to the more warlike orcs, even to some of the Sin’dorei. Kael’thas met Mei’le’s eye and she went in a cloud of perfume and silks to giggle and break up the conversation.

Akama would betray them again, sooner or later. Kael hid his expression in his glass. He needed to move people to the netherstorm as quickly as possible, reduce their dependence on this one fortress, reduce their dependence on the shaman.

It was tempting to poison him, too.

He had made a particular effort to invite the orcs, Rommath having informed him of that whole little escapade. Kargath himself hadn’t shown up – an insult, and a warning - but five of the elders had along with Kargath’s daughter. They were an argumentative lot, but by mighty effort he had gradually won over three of them. They seemed to respect the injuries he had taken in combat.

One of them had loudly declared that in a crisis, a warlord reached for the best tool. Sometimes that was a sword, rather than an axe. And then winked heavily to ensure he got the message.

“Truly, those are wise words.” He insisted on toasting. People drinking couldn’t use their mouth to talk at him.

Vashj had appeared to help him hold court, the perfect lady, but he almost resented it. He was off-kilter and tempermental, and her perfect composure reflected upon him poorly. And no small number of Sin’dorei looked at their close relationship with caution. Everyone knew what had happened to the naga, an arrogant monarch making poor deals. No one cared to follow in their footsteps. Or lack thereof.

Idiots. The Sin’dorei needed to trust him. As if he would- he caught himself. What on earth was amiss with him? He had eaten and yet still he was hungry. The arcane crystals flaked over his meal and into his drink didn’t sate him the way they ought to.

It was probably nothing.

Akama chose that moment to speak up.

“Are you feeling quite alright? You look a little pale.”

_I will knife fight you over dessert, I swear on the Sunwell-_

He’d had the waiters throw open the doors to the veranda so as to listen to the rain and prevent the room from growing over-warm with the presence of many bodies. Someone shrieked as a shape formed out of the darkness, and then Illidan was stepping in out of the rain, lowering his head so that his horns didn’t catch on the window frame.

The room felt briefly silent, such was the pulse of mana he brought with him. Even those with no such talent felt the air change, as if before a storm. Illidan drew himself up to his full height a little more slowly than was strictly needed. The room appeared to dim for a moment as if he drew all light into himself.

_Show off._

Illidan inclined his head to him.

“A fine table, brightprince.”

And just like that every eye turned back to him. Perfect.

“There’s room for one more.”

The Highlords appearance threw everyone onto the back foot, much to his relief. Dawnrose eyed his talons as he settled carefully into a backless chair next to her, and was quiet for the rest of the night. Akama left with a vague excuse about preparing the basement fires. Illidan didn’t quite turn his head to watch him go – he very rarely made eye contact with anyone, after all – but Kael’thas felt his attention shift.

Illidan did not trust him either. Good.

The orcs had heard tales of him fighting six wardens in mid-air and demanded details. Illidan preened a little and engaged them, and for the first time that evening Kael’thas could breathe. He took the opportunity to appreciate his meal. Crispy spider dumplings, made with Outland spiders. Unusually gamey, but pleasant nonetheless. He reached for the mana sauce.

The chef nearly took conniptions at Illidan’s unexpected appearance, but rallied nicely and presented him with a very finely made salad of dark green leaves, red grapes, honeyed nuts and various small berries. It was a commonly held belief amongst them that Kaldorei didn’t eat meat, much as Kael’thas had tried to dissuade them of it. Illidan however seemed happy enough, and even accepted the wine Mel’ia tried to ply him with. He inclined his head very slightly towards Kael’thas.

“What kind of wine is this?”

“Strawberry.”

“Ah.” Illidan almost smiled. “Well remembered.”

The storm came rolling in gradually enough that they could see it from the balcony, driving cold air before it and the scent of rain. The open shutters meant that all of them felt the rumble of thunder over the mountains. Excellent, Kael’thas thought briefly. The crops in the lower valley could do with the rain, and the scouts had noticed that a great abundance of edible mushrooms tended to spring up in the wake of Outlands magical storms. 

Better yet, the sudden noise and sense of weight in the air seemed to act as a silent signal that dinner was over. Why, usually he had to call for three rounds of coffee before everyone would leave! He rose to bid everyone goodbye, made sure to embrace Dawnrose and get a grease stain on the back of her gown, thanked the waiters and sent them off with packages of leftovers, and closed the double doors with an immense sense of relief.

There. Another trial complete.

He turned back to the dining room and snuffed out all the candles with a sigh of magic, enjoying the aroma of smoke that followed. Now. All he had to do was sign off on ten different treasury reports, read up on the provision masters’ latest stocktake and check reports from the scouts he’d sent to keep an eye on the Wardens, for he was quite sure Maiev was still alive.

After that he would be able to get about five hours sleep. It sounded divine.

Only when he went to close over the shutters did he realize that Illidan hadn’t left. He sat out on the balcony facing the storm, wings slightly open so that they almost resembled a cloak. The raindrops were as large as hazel nuts and nearly as warm as tea, slicking his hair to his skull and dripping off his horns. Yet he was smiling, the expression so small and content that Kael’thas could barely see it. It looked so…peaceful.

He wanted that, that kind of peace. Didn’t everyone?

“I can feel you staring,” Illidan said mildly. “Your kind does not have great vision in the darkness. Perhaps you should come closer.”

Smooth.

Illidan opened one great wing and Kael’thas ducked beneath. Water soaked through his shoes almost immediately. He didn’t care. It was so dark out here now that he could only barely make out the shapes of the distant mountains. No wonder Illidan lurked around the temple roof so much. There was some vast serenity in this noise and wind, a sense of seclusion in the darkness.

“We ought do this more often.”

“Indeed. All that light is sometimes blinding.” Illidan tipped his face up into the rain. Kael’thas was loathe to break the moment, but duty compelled him.

“Did you learn anything from Ma’niqu?”

“All that I hoped to.” And he said no more, and Kael’thas set his teeth.

_Trust me._

“And no more than that?”

“Ask no more of me.”

“We need to be able to rely on each other.” The words hung in the air and he felt how pathetic it was. Honestly. Trust and other such feeble things. They all shattered like glass at the slightest pressure-

“I – we are already reliant on you. You, your magic, your cunning, your connections.” Illidan folded a wing across himself carefully. “I fear that it will make you more of a target for the demons.”

“It’s too late for that. Ma’niqu came here after me.” And he had been able to do nothing to resist. Would that thing have made him kill Rommath? Surely he would have been able to fight that. Surely. He pushed past the horror of it. “I don’t want to be in this position any more than you. But we have to take the world as it is, not as we would have it be.”

“I disagree.”

And Kael’thas supposed he would, and had to kick himself for trying to make such an argument to an elf who had decided against all sense and reason to destroy the endless ranks of the Legion.

Illidan smiled suddenly and this one wasn’t so peaceful. This one had far too many teeth.

“They have a homeworld.”

He said no more, but he didn’t need to. It was generally assumed that demons lurked constantly in the nether from which they sprang, always ready to attack. If there was a main hub to which they retreated, a real physical thing, that could be attacked and destroyed. It wasn’t quite good news. But it was a step in the right direction.

Thunder grumbled in the distance and he flattened his ears.

“Much as the rain is soothing, I grow weary of all these storms.”

“We will weather them.” Illidan spoke with such certainty, as if no other outcome could occur.

“So sure, are you?”

“We have no other choice.” Despite the grim words he sounded amused, as if they shared a private joke. Kael’thas surprised himself by cackling. It was remarkably soothing to allow himself such gallows humour when so often he could not.

He was suddenly glad of their crash-landing into the mountains, wretched as the experience had been. It had been strangely pleasing to walk with someone, speak with someone and know they didn’t really consider him a prince so much as a person. The resulting lack of boundaries was as pleasing as it was infuriating.

It helped that he was connected to nothing and no one. Any Sin’dorei he approached for companionship would take on an aspect of political game. Even the courtesans of the Den were all related to someone. Much as he adored Mei’le she was daughter to a powerful merchant house, one whom he didn’t care to give more influence.

Illidan Stormrage on the other hand was entirely his own entity. Any such attachment between them would be seen as a canny move on his part, strengthening an alliance for the benefit of his people. Better yet, the Kaldorei were famously monogamous. No one else would dare to make a move on him, least they have an enraged demon hunter come to batter down their door.

However, he had to be careful in this. Illidan was a complicated creature. One misstep and this bare companionship would be gone.

Illidan started a little as he interlinked their fingers, wings opening as if to take into flight. Kael was careful to keep it loose enough that he could escape if he wished. And after a few moments consideration he settled back, and rested a wing across him like a cloak. Well now. He hadn’t expected reciprocation so soon. He decided to take a risk and leaned into Illidan’s shoulder, closing his eyes.

All very chaste.

No matter. One of the most valuable traits a prince could possess was patience. Especially when it felt as if there was no time at all.

“Go to sleep. I will keep watch.”

It would be rude, he was sure, to refuse an offer like that.

This wasn’t going to get any easier. But for now he could rest. And in the morning they would rise, make tea with honey, and start again.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this work, come find me on Tumblr!


End file.
